The Power of Flight

I've been an analyst at American Airlines for over 3 years now. The hours are great, but the pay is average. The only thing keeping me around is the fact that I can fly virtually anywhere in the world for free. So here is my question:

How can I leverage my flight benefits in order to make some extra cash with a part-time consulting gig?

I want to approach a small start-up and offer to work on commission only. After learning the business and developing leads, I'd follow-up with said leads in person. I think it would be advantageous to be able to fly to Mumbai for an initial meet and greet while other competitors might be limited to email/video chat. This personal interaction could open the door for me to make presentations to potential clients, and ultimately end up in me landing accounts for the start-up.

Is there any start-up or industry where my services would be of particular use?

 

I'd end up taking vacation time around the time i schedule meetings. I figure every 4-6 weeks, I can take Thursday/Friday off. Travel Wednesday night, have meetings Thursday/Friday.

 
Best Response

sounds like the viability of this idea depends on your continued employment with American. also, taking vacation time for work will lead to a very long sales cycle, unless you can take 1-2 days off every single week. it usually takes several meetings to close somebody, and if you have a solid pipeline, you'll have several dozen leads going on at the same time likely in different parts of the globe, and it's not feasible for you to a meeting in Mumbai on a Thursday then a meeting in Frankfurt on Friday.

I'd read your benefits and employee contract carefully, if you're leveraging an employee benefit to benefit another firm, that could be seen as a violation of your employment contract (this is all a guess, no idea for sure), but this idea doesn't pass the sniff test.

finally, some businesses prohibit you from taking part in other business ventures for profit even if it's not in direct competition with your main employer, I'd look into this. otherwise, you could be exposing yourself to potentially negative ramifications, at the very least termination for cause, and worst case scenario a lawsuit requiring you to pony up the value of all of the flights you took for this startup.

sorry to paint a negative picture, but this sounds extremely shady and I'd tread carefully before diving head first into it.

 

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