In reply to P3PPY :
I started in 94. Pay was $50/day school, but if you think about it, it only involves about 4 hours a day. Charter was $10/hr or $90/day (after 9 hours) plus $50 for each overnight and lodging was paid either by the group or out of the profits of the charter. In some cases, I had to arrange my own lodging, but usually dispatch took care of it. The only time I had to do it was on longer trips when it's hard to predict where you'll end up for the night. Good charters (custom service, rich people on vacation, etc) you could easily make the same in tips as your wages.
Driving in 2000-2001 in MS, I just did charters. $125/day, no minimum. If I picked up people and took them 4 hours, I got $125. If I filled the log book to 10 hours, I got $125. Overnights $90 IIRC. Tips better in the south unless you get a student group or tourists from a country that doesn't have the custom of tipping. Sure, they're told it's customary to tip, but they have no clue. Many of our foreign charters just worked a fixed tip into the traveler's fees which always led to a very boring tip. No chance to wow them with your awesomness and earn big bucks.
There are a few ways you can go. Something like Fullerton or Greyhound gets you max pay, max road time, max death potential from weirdos, and the absolute least amount of fun. Then there are independent charters like the folks I worked with. Each trip was totally custom. We never did the same trip twice. We were just the transportation. The group or travel agency did all the planning. There are companies that are a mixture. You can charter them for whatever, but their bread and butter is selling organized trips to a few dozen locations and marketing it themselves.
I used to be the case that you could tell the type of company by their name. "Lines" like Greyhound and Fullerton Trailways were public transportation. "Tours" were travel planners that hocked their own trips, and "Charters" were just the custom transport. The boundaries get blurred as many companies have dabbled in all formats without changing their names. There were times in dry spells at our charter companies that we would put together a tour to make some money. In Western PA where I started, Groundhog day was a good one. $40/ticket and we could fill all 5 MCI coaches. $25/ticket and we would take school buses too. In LA we would do shuttle charters down to the SuperDome for tailgating. Advertise to show up here, shuttles run every 15 minutes, $20.
In Austin.... THAT was a fun gig. Didn't make E36 M3 for money ($10/hr) to drive this awesome converted schoolie with massive 18" subs, disco ball, stripper pole, and a fridge. I got more [insert random sexual activity while driving] than I can legally disclose from drunken partiers. Take them to a bar, go into said bar and hang out (but not drink of course), load up and go to the next bar and repeat. I kept all the alcohol at the end of the night and drunk people tip pretty well. Open the back door, hose out the spilled beer, pee, and vomit, and we're ready for the next one.
In all three of my jobs, they would call and ask if I wanted a charter on Weds leaving at 8am for three days in Orlando (for example). I could accept or decline without penalty, although they were all small companies and I took what I could. We had 10 drivers for 6 coaches, so you can imagine that if you constantly turn down work, you're last on the list to call.
Unless things have changed, if you're not a surly, chain-smoking, toothless retired truck driver, you are a golden asset. Many coach drivers take to it after retiring. They have spent 30 years with no one but a CB to talk to, peeing in snapple bottles, and eating truck stop fried chicken. They are very good drivers, but have little finesse and don't tend to care if Mildred gets tossed out of the bathroom with her knickers at her ankles because they're 2 minutes behind and want to make that next light. They also tend to hate the presence of other humans. So if you come from the non-trucker side, have a personality, and the ability to finesse the heck out of a big machine, you will impress your passengers and word gets back to dispatch about it. In all three companies I drove for, I was in my 30s, attractive (at least to the little old church ladies), and personable. Tips were great, and dispatch loved me. I got to the top of the list fast just because I didn't smoke in the bus and fart on customers.
So that's how it was 20 years ago. I thought about doing it again, but at 47 I've found different callings. I finally surrendered my CDL this year.
