Would you be open to the idea of “making your trip pay for itself” if you could carry an item or package on board with you when you travel and then deliver it to someone in your destination?
I recently stumbled across an interesting Facebook ad for AirWayBill, which is a service that connects shippers to travelers to act as couriers during their own travels. Carriers receive 80% of the shipping fee and AirWayBill gets 20%. AWB takes care of all the transactions.
It’s no surprise that the sharing-economy is growing; there’s a peer-to-peer marketplace for everything, and now even shipping.
Of course the first two words that come to mind to me is “drug mule”, but that’s not at all how this service is intended to be marketed as.
According to the “About Us” section of the AirWayBill site, here’s the scoop:
Of course, there’s definitely risk associated with hand-delivering something across the world to a stranger- safety and legality aside- but AWB states that the carrier is held liable for the full value of the item if it doesn’t make it to the intended destination.
Bottom Line
In theory, while I like the idea that AWB is trying to market- efficiently allowing travelers to help someone out along the way while getting compensated for doing so, I’m not sure it’s worth the risk and hassle…Â especially for unseasoned or naive travelers who are unaware of customs laws or any legal troubles they may run into while trying to make some extra cash to pay for their trip.
I mean, so many things could go wrong… such as that “hard-to-find medicine” mention above. It just seems like a gray area for me that may turn a service with a good intention bad for some people for the right price.
Plus, we live in a world that I feel is connected enough, with shipping solutions for almost every need. I’ll leave my shipping to the professionals.
I personally will be sitting out on this, but would love to hear from those who would consider doing this or have done so in the past. What are your thoughts?
I would do it. I have several trip coming up both domestic and international, may see if any are a good fit.
This reminds me of another air courier opportunity I recently read about, called Airmule. While I’ve known about the air courier concept before, I used to think that the best deals are already gone. So, I’m pleasantly surprised to find out that there are still some potentially good air courier deals going on. I’m particularly excited about Airmule since I love Chinese culture, and Airmule seems to focus on flights from the US to China.
http://www.frugaltravelguy.com/2017/03/would-you-transport-goods-to-earn-extra-travel-cash.html
Kind of like in the move “Eurotrip?” lol! :) granted that was over 13 years ago but funny!!!
I would for the right $ providing I assume no liability for if it is lost or the wrong item, etc and as long as it isn’t anything that is illegal and would risk me losing GE or getting arrested (i.e. A drug that is legal in the country flying out of but banned in the country flying into).
I’d also want to make sure there is a drop off place and it’s at the airport or the area I’m staying in. I don’t want to be carrying around an item playing phone tag with the receipient to get the item.
I’m with you, when I saw your headline I thought “drug mule”. Depending on the price, the ability to know the contents of the package and being absolved of liability, such as employees of a parcel service deflecting responsibility back to the company, I would do it.
Standard security question: “Has a stranger given you anything to take on the flight?”
Too many things can go wrong.
I know this post is from a while back, but do you know of anyone who has tried this? Their website looks pretty legit, and there are even testimonials, but I too am concerned about the standard “are you carrying anything for a stranger?” security question. It seems like this kind of service would need to make arrangements with the TSA.
I know people have tried other services such as Grabr. I would be willing to do a test run maybe for blog post purposes but I have the same concerns as you!