Paplover

I have a weird gig. A PhD but currently calibrating equipment at Customs and Border Protection facilities around the country and some in Canada and elsewhere. Lots of time on airplanes to get there.

GlobeTrttr83

Technical Sales manager for me (some call it "sales engineer" though I am not an engineer by training, just have an affinity for selling technical widgets to them).

I travel about 1-2 weeks a month, usually no more than 4 nights at a time. My trips are planned on relatively short notice, so the mix of airlines is diverse, based on lowest fares that aren't Spirit or Frontier. I try to make DL my go-to to maintain at least Silver status, but if AA or WN are more than $100 cheaper with a similar schedule, I have little to no justification for the higher DL fare for the bean counters.

I miss having GM status with DL, but it seems now that it's just as worthless as FO due to the saturation of PMs & DMs out of ATL where I'm based. To compensate I don't mind accruing miles with AA or WN that I can use to take a few vacations with Mrs. GlobeTrttr. This year we have traveled to the Caribbean and Europe. She puts up with me being gone for work, so we make sure we get some pay-back.

GlobeTrttr83

Luggage - so true. After 7.5 years, I just replaced my TravelPro crew7 with the Crew10. I think the 7 was made better, but we will see. Haven't had to check it yet and don't want to.

I absolutely agree that F2F is required to do business. If you're not flying in to meet your customers face-to-face, your competitors are, and who do you think is going to come out ahead?

third_wave

I would say this absolutely depends on the industry and/or the situation. In some cases meeting remotely will reduce overhead and increase productivity. Sometimes it won't. An important skill is to recognize when F2F is an advantage and when it isn't.

kishkash

Same type of work for me, as well as rough estimate of miles/year. Although I am, in theory, supposed to be more North America-focused, I'm truly global, especially this year.

SDQBound

I work for an International Organization. Based in Paris, home country is in the Caribbean, also relatives in the US. Travel is a mix of business and personal. For personal travel, we usually fly home 3 times / year and travel extensively in Europe (AF mini fares are very low and we get at least 1000 MQM roundtrip, much more on 500+miles flights).

scongro

Technical Strategy for a 3rd Party Logistics Company. We're in about 30 US markets (nothing abroad), plus I'm based remote as well.

My area of expertise is in Back Office (order processing, warehouse, payments, etc.) technology systems that are typically used by B2B and B2C retail companies.

MonAmQB

I am the Marketing for a semiconductor company. Based in east coast with headquarters in west coast, so my domestic travels are mostly transcon. Customer base is mostly in Asia, so my international travels are almost all to there. Did ~220k MQM last year. This year is on pace to exceed that.

HDQDD

Great thread.

I'm "officially" a Product Manager in Marketing, but I spend my time doing mostly sales engineer type work. I work for a large European company that sells products (highly accurate tools/assembly systems) to help make other products (everything from cars to rockets to Earth movers).

I spend a lot of time demoing our newest technology to customers and our sales team, and then looking at potential applications at their site to try it out. Also spend a good deal of time working with plant/enterprise IT to get new software and wireless devices spec'ed/tested/approved. Some of that can be done remotely, but much of it cannot. I love my job, don't always enjoy the travel. Travel 40-45 weeks/year. Mostly short trips and Europe 2-3 times/year.

I went through some acute personal trauma earlier this year, and it has me re-evaluating many things in my own life. Been thinking about finding a job here in the RDU area and cutting travel from 4 weeks a month, to more like 2 or less.

TheLifeOfA_NKCM

Just got promoted to head of HR at a small server host. So, I'm planning on also possibly touring data centers to find a collocation provider who'll better fit our needs. That'll be fun. Unfortunately, it's not paid for because we're so new. So it goes in the trash if flights don't work out.

GregInMN

Retired now but worked in sales for a large, international electrical Mfg. In my early years I had teams in various parts of the US. I was traveling every week for 3 years and every other week for 5 more years. I have been to every state except #49 & #50. In the last 10 years of my career, I had teams in the EU, Asia and South America. Didn't travel as often but further and longer ~150K MQM. Now we travel for fun (every other month), back to many of the places I went to for work to actually enjoy them. Plan to get to those last two US states in the next 18 months too.

ecaarch

I have successfully married my love of travel with my business as a nightclub DJ. Strategic booking of gigs have taken me to 5 continents (no gigs yet in Asia).

I sleep well on flights (with the help of Ambien) so I can do crazy things like take TATL flight to Europe on Friday night, do a gig on Saturday, shower, and a TATL flight back to the US on Sunday (with the same crew both directions).

Also do some personal travel in the US just because.

NYCflip

I own a small sports medicine practice in NYC and get to travel the world with professional teams and athletes. Fortunately most of the teams are sponsored by Delta (and United but I only fly them if there are no Skyteam flights available).

Instead of traveling 100+K per year, I hover at around 60-75K miles and am more than ok with this. Most trips are 1-2 weeks long so I have to decline quite a few trips each year to spend time at home with the wifey and, oh, run the practice In the end, I try to say yes to places I have never been!