Careers/Jobs of Frequent Flyers

[Princess Fiona]

I'm a physician at a large public hospital. I do 2-3 long-haul J trips per year to conferences, 3-5 interstate trips which are work related and the remainder of my travel is leisure with family.
Since finding AFF I have been able to maximize my returns on both :mrgreen:

 

[sr81]

Currently a project manager in Gov but moving across to one of the big 4 to work in their capital markets area. No doubt that will see me on a plane with some regularity.

Prior to this I was the managing director of a tall ship - yep, think pirate ship but with troubled youth. I would follow the ship around the country and attend the big sailing events and conferences in EU and North America. Got the board to approve a tavel budget of $X a year then flew discount whY (JQ mainly) short hail and J for long haul stuff worked out with some creative DONE3's from DPS.

 

[dfcatch]

Frequent leisure flyer, keen status runner, short period vacationer.

Same here. Although wouldn't mind a career change that enabled me to do as you suggest

 

[beardoc]

I'm a physician as well - at the moment freelancing but about to head rural for a while. The majority of my travel has been self-funded, with the exceptions of a course that I volunteer my time to teach.

Expecting to pick up a lot of travel as I commute home on weekends from now on.

 

[notzac]

I work for a multinational IT firm as a trainer -- not really a traditional "travel role", but my manager is in the US so there's at least one or two trips a year out of that. Other than that I occasionally travel for projects or professional development opportunites .. everything else is personal. Family are interstate, so there's a bit of domestic travel for that. Our wonderful travel policy at work :!: dictates whY for everything and everyone .. but as that conflicts with my personal travel policy, I pay the difference for at least whY+. My manager thinks I'm crazy, but my knees appreciate it.

 

[drron]

Another Physician.Seems like we have a lot of time on our hands!
Before retiring I rarely travelled for work but made sure i picked my conferences wisely.:shock:.Now I work part time as a locum so have gone from private practice to government hospitals.Initially travelled through different states but now I still live in QLD but work in Tasmania.
Most of our travel is self funded leisure-which is why I am working part time.Didn't really understand FF schemes but did join up as a QP life member in 1992(joining mrs.dr.ron up as a life Golden Wings member).Until the demise of AN we mainly travelled on *A airlines and we did find premium awards easy to get.
After AN's demise we switched to OW but weren't taken with QFF.Thanks to this forum I am nearly to LTP on AA-but mrs.dr.ron credits to QFF so we have an OWE in the family.
And Simongr-I thought I was a little compulsive having nearly sorted out our 2012 travel!

 

[Taezar]

I head up the recruitment for a national charity. I travel once a month or so for business and a few times a year for pleasure. Life is good.

 

[esquire]

I'm a specialist health and safety consultant working for a international consulting company - so have clients (inc one large government) all over the show, but mainly Aust/NZ. Travel extensively - usually weekly. One week (7 day period) I had 9 domestic flights :shock: Over the past 4 years over 500+ flights (most in Y)!

Also travel regularly overseas for conferences and holidays - usually choosing weird and wonderful places - Bermuda, Belize, Ukraine, Jordan etc.

 

[sinophile888]

I work as a part-time masochis_/sadis_. AKA a high school Mathematics teacher.

The only non self-funded travel I have undertaken was 3 trips to China with 25± Year 12 students in ’05, ’06 and ’07. SIA paid for my flights. All the trips were a huge success from my point of view; I brought all the students home and with no injuries. But that was enough of tempting fate. A change in the hierarchy at work meant a focus away from trips that did not have a direct bearing on a particular curriculum area, toward trips such as the music tour or the NIDA tour.

All other travel is self-funded. Usually at least one trip a year to Melbourne to see family and for shopping, one trip to somewhere in China for my husband to practise his Mandarin and one cruise with accompanying flights. This year, Europe and UK plus a Eastern Mediterranean cruise with my daughter over Christmas and New Year, PER -> MEL in July for family, a cruise up the Yangtze from Shanghai to Chongqing in October and Jan 2012, a cruise from Singapore to Hong Kong.

Travelling during school holidays means that I have limited access to specials on flights or hotels. So travel costs are considerably higher for us than for those with flexible holidays. But we do get 12 weeks spread throughout the year. We enjoy making use of the free flights from Perth to the Eastern States from our AMEX card, and I use frequent flyer points for international flights whenever I can.

My husband’s super pays for all our living expenses and my part-time salary pays for travel. I have to keep working for as long as we want to keep travelling.

 

[Ikara]

I've been retired for three years now and I probably do 2 or 3 interstate trips a year (ex ADL). Went to Singapore earlier this year.

When I was working I had a National role with a major International Company. I moved to this role form a State based role and refused to go to Sydney. Luckily the Company let me commute each week ADL - SYD - ADL with MEL, PER & BNE thrown in for good measure. I did that for 8 years and managed to get LTG out of it.

Do I miss the travel? Not one little bit - much to Mrs Ikara's chagrin as I have just short of 1M points still to be used.

JB

 

[haydensydney]

eBiz Manager in Financial Services. Mainly BA/Project work with the added joy of managing a production support team...

 

[JohnM]

I'm a research scientist retired from a federal government research institution.

I did plenty of domestic travel and moderate amount of international while working (all Y). Later years of work (and post divorce/kids grown up) also included self-funded overseas travel and the start of a love affair with DONEx's, although I did one AONE4 in the last months of the old 20-sector paper ticket type.

All travel is now self-funded, with at least one DONEx each year and quite a few domestic trips. I always use every one of the 16 sectors and use points to upgrade to F on the QF A380 in/out of Australia (only missed out once).

Biggest travel gripes: reduction from 20 to 16 sectors on xONEx's and QF's increase to 2400 SCs to keep PartnerJohnM at PG :evil:. While the latter doesn't affect many AFFers, judging from previous posts, it matters to us as PartnerJohnM often travels separately from me for parts of trips because she's still working but has no status of her own.

 

[BensAdventures]

Great Thread!

I work for an Industry Association and I've been given the opportunity to maintain our International relationships, so that means I get to travel internationally 2-3 times per year minimum. I love my job, I get to help Aussie companies export and sell into markets where the opportunities seem bountiful! However, because my title has 'National' in it, I still have to travel domestically a lot. I'm over the domestic travel as it is always in Y, and hence limited Points & SC's. AFF has turned me into a true Status chaser, hence my first DONE4 in a couple of months time! 2-3 more years of my travel and I'll be LTG, then I might retire!

 

[Timba-Jet]

I work for a large general insurance company within eBusiness/product development. Not an exec or snr manager, just a hard working employee lol!

Apart from the odd Syd-Mel/Bne work trip, 95% of my travels are self-funded leisure trips, my poor bank balance. Thanks to AFFer I've been able to get most bang for my buck, including a memorable splurge on a DONE5

 

[yohy?!]

Business Systems Manager for a Multinational Corporate Real Estate firm.

Travel for work has been a bit quiet of late as our top clients (insurance) tighten their belts, fortunately leisure travel is stronger than ever with the wealth of knowledge of good deals here

Looking at a lot of travel to the Phillipines later this year for work and praying that QF has banished the 767 from SYD-MNL by then....

 

[Fantic125]

eBiz Manager in Financial Services. Mainly BA/Project work with the added joy of managing a production support team...

Equivalent to running a child care centre then?

 

[Nigelinoz]

I'm an ex chef of 22 years experience but several years ago I was in a serious car accident which left me unable to stand for long periods of time so I changed careers and now run a home based business repairing and selling computers,I also sell software from third party vendors designed to help dairy farmers run their milking and farm operations more easily,I don't travel that often for business but when I do it's generally domestic.
Most of my travel is self funded .
Cheers
N'oz

 

[hedge]

Hedge Fund Analyst - zero work related travel.

All pleasure/self funded.

 

[ps107]

Engineer doing FIFO at a mine site at the moment.

I have wanted to ask a similar question as the OP. I am particularly intrigued, after having looked up a few members' ba97.com flight logs, why some work travellers only spend an hour or less at their destination. I've mainly noticed it on NZ domestic travel. What kind of jobs entail going to a place, then heading back almost before you've had a chance to get out of the airport?

Live organ couriers? Airline seat testers?

 

[dot]

I work for a large multinational IT (Software, Hardware and Services) company as a Telecom Solutions Architect. All my travel is work related across my territory (the whole world less North America, Japan and Western Europe) and all booked in Y.