How it works

Route, day (or a window of days), how many of you, and the most you will pay per seat. That last number is a ceiling, not a bid you are stuck with — it is the point past which you would rather not go.

A window instead of a single day is the highest-leverage choice on the form. Three days of flexibility pools you with roughly three times the travelers, and a bigger pool is both cheaper and far likelier to fly.

Requests for the same route with overlapping dates become one flight. Your pool page shows how many travelers are on it and what they collectively cover.

We never move your departure airport to make a pool bigger. If a flight from an airport 40 miles away is a better deal, you are shown it and you decide — the confirmation email should never name an airport you did not choose.

Part 135 operators in the region see the pool: route, window, passenger count, and the revenue those passengers have committed. They respond with one number — what they will fly the whole aircraft for.

They can also bid conditionally: “$14,000, once there are six passengers.” That bid sits live and fires the moment the pool crosses it, with no one having to be at a desk. It is how a flight that was 60% there on Tuesday is confirmed on Wednesday.

This is the part worth reading twice, because it is where the money is decided.

The operator has named a charter total. We sort everyone in the pool by their ceiling, highest first, and walk down the list. At each point the price is the charter total divided by the seats so far — and that group works if the price is at or under the lowest ceiling in it.

Adding travelers always lowers the price, so we take the largest group that works. That fills the most seats and charges everyone the least; here, those two goals point the same direction.

If nobody's ceiling can carry the operator's number, nothing happens: no flight, no charge, and the operator is told what the pool can actually support so they can come back lower.

A confirmed flight with empty seats stays open at the price it cleared at. Those seats are the operator's upside — the money goes to them, on top of the bid they accepted — which is exactly why an operator will take a flight that is only just worth flying.

For you it means a confirmed flight with seats left is the best thing on the board: a real aircraft, a known price, and no waiting.

Encore adds a 8% service fee to the traveler's side, shown as its own line before you ever enter a card. Operators pay us nothing. An operator charged a commission simply prices it back into the bid, and then you pay it anyway without being able to see it.

The full pricing page

Your card is stored when you make the request and charged only when an operator commits an aircraft to your flight. Between those two moments there is no hold and no authorization on your account.

Once a flight is confirmed, the booking is non-refundable. An operator has committed an aircraft, a crew and a slot on the strength of that manifest. If we or the operator cancel, you are refunded in full — that half is ours.

If nobody takes your flight, the request expires when your travel window closes and your card is never touched. There is no fee for trying.

Encore Flights arranges charter as your agent. We are not an air carrier and we do not operate aircraft. Every flight is performed by an FAA-certificated Part 135 operator who holds full operational control — including the final call on whether a flight departs, which is a call that should always belong to the people in the cockpit.