Nicksta

I'll weigh in, with hopefully a more cheerful message.

Until my clients orchestrated a global collapse of wealth, life meant I may travel 250 days per year. Personally, I love it. Its exhausting and a relationship is difficult, but if you're passionate about work travel, its fulfilling.

Currently I work in sales / consulting. I used to work for the Big-4. That was also a lot of travel, but not as enjoyable for me. The people whom I travel with AND those who enjoy it all seem to work in sales. Reason being... you're on expense account, staying nicer places, and doing fun things to entertain your clients. Consulting for a bank/accounting firm - you are trying to save the client money and prove that you are worth your billing rate by working your tail off.

Back in the good old days, a trip to Seattle was into Boeing field on one of the company's planes, too.

Okay, so career fields... Oil companies. Liquor distributors. Pharmaceutical companies. Consulting. Shipping firms. Industrial lending. Aircraft brokerage.

Best of luck.

SAN_Finn

One of my friends has the best travelling job imho. He is a very specilized service technician for the papermaking industry. Basically he is on call 24/7 but there is only about 12-20 calls a year. When the company does send him out though it's in hours notice with him going to the airport and getting on the first plane that get's you there. Sometimes its close, sometimes its on the other side of the planet.

This means he always gets to fly J or F (sometimes the only option is a jet).

Basically his job is very relaxed normally with him basically educating him self as much as possible, then you spurt off somewhere for few days and then come back. gets paid really well also even though he has no university degree (just lots of experience and good language skills)

Wadge

+1

flyingbee

No I won't lighten up - a couple of weeks ago I had a long connection time to wait at T5, and I had a last minute work panic. Instead of the afternoon sipping champagne in the GF lounge I had planned, I had to spend the afternoon sipping tea, working.

Then just as I was on my way home from that trip, there was the small matter of a volcanic ash cloud, and four planned days away from home turned into 10 days away.

BA5E

Like it like it that is a classic^:-:

julmops

Even working for one of the largest Telecoms companies in the world and travelling to an outsourced backoffice in Southeast Asia 3-4 times a year wouldn't help as I'm stuck to Economy nowadays ...

brightstar100

There have been times when I have done a lot of travel for business - up to 5,000 TPs per year - but I do much less now: just one or two short haul trips per month.

I am happier, less stressed, I have time to exercise properly, I eat proper meals at proper times, I get 8 hours sleep per night, and I have better relationships with friends and family.

In my view, the most important thing is to have a job that you like, which pays well enough so you can travel for leisure in J or F, when and where you want! I comfortably maintain my BA Gold through personal travel, and I find life is more fun as a result.

dm827430

Until very recently a friend of mine was lucky enough to do just this. Lives on the Gold Coast working from home, and only had to spend one week in six in DUB. Client even paid for the J ticket. unfortunately for him the Irish financials arent doing too well these days.

poshpet

Hi

I am an electrical engineer in the printing and packaging industry, my area is Europe, South / Central America, Africa and India / Saudi, I have been Gold for 3 years now after doing the job for 4 years...
It's not a glamorous job like many people think, don't let the traveling fool you into thinking that! It is a lot of long hours and very tiring, on a travel day usually Monday leave my house at 4am, take the first flight available to my destination, work all day until 8 or 9pm, then on the return, usually Friday, work the morning / afternoon and catch the last flight home usually not getting to my home before 11pm .

Other downsides to business travel, you get to see the airport, company and hotel of where you are visiting and that is about it apart from on a few occasions you might get the chance to visit some places of interest, In 4 years I have managed to go sight seeing around 5 times and that is doing
25+ trips per year. Social life goes out of the window, if you organise to do something with friends even if it is months in advance you can guarantee that a business trip will come up and destroy any plans that have been made!!

Upside to business travel, you basically get a free holiday every year with all the air-miles and hotel points that you accumulate through out the year.
I have to make all of my travel arrangements, so I chose who to fly with, usually BA unless they do not fly to where I need to get to, chose a hotel that suits my taste and style (as well as making sure I get maximum points as possible!)

Don't get me wrong I feel privileged to be able to do this as a job as I am still young only 25 and I have no degrees or A levels, just an electrical apprenticeship that I completed at a previous company in the same market sector.

LeisureFirst

A bit of a contradiction here. If you want to travel the world a lot for work in style then you're not going to give two figs about BAEC Gold because your own private jet captain won't be interested in the colour of your piddling little BA card.

So, based on the experience of one friend, my advice is to found a famous and phenomenally successful internet company, sell out, and set up a hedge fund to make even more money. Then you can afford to travel privately, even on long routes (he does San Francisco to London a lot). Forget the Gold card.

Does that help?

ung1

I know someone who sells insurance to HNWIs who travels very frequently (based out of SIN though). Her former employer only paid for Y even on the longest of flights, but her current employer pays for J travel for anything longer than a couple of hours. I think she made SQ PPS in a couple of months.

Sovereign wealth funds of middle eastern states/ countries are great places to work at too (of course depends on what you're doing and your position in the company). Enough J travel to maintain Gold on a couple of FF programmes, without travelling too often.

SteveF

Join the Royal Protection Squad (or whatever it's called) and get assigned to "Airmiles Andy".

BingBongBoy

Still Queens Messengers... Or, that is what I call them!

There is one lovely lovely lady who I have flown quite a few times. Always seems to be when I am working in Club when she is on my flights. I remember how she likes her tea and what she likes to drink.

I now know which mail I can touch, which I can't. Which she is happy for me to man-handle into a wardrobe and which is not to be let out of her sight etc...

My face always lights up when I see her, she is an absolute delight to have on an aircraft. I can't wait to see her again!

God, that sounds really sad of me...

weehelen

Well yes, you do have to work for one of the big guns (or for a contractor on a reimbursable contract with one of the big guns) to reap the travel benefits!

What about a job doing something ultra-glamorous like working in F1? One of my old college friends landed himself a job looking after the engine of the car belonging to some German guy who has just come out of retirement... My friend is 29 and has clocked up hundred of thousands of miles.

The downside is that he has not spent a full week at home so far this year. Maybe not so glamorous.

Grimble

Echoing this - got Gold for the first time this year. The thrill of the chase was good, but I now can't be bothered with flying!