Air travel couriers

Hi all.
First off hello my names Tres and I am pretty new around here. I kind of stumbled on to the site on accident, but I am totally hooked! I previously considered myself a pretty well seasoned traveler (Europe,Asia, Central America) but thanks to Boots N All I am really stuck on the idea of Round The World Travel...
So heres my much belated question that really has nothing to do with that entire schpeel...

I was in my local book store reading a guide book on planning a RTW trip and I noticed they mentioned Air Couriers as an option for getting really cheap tickets. I have herd through the grape vine of people actually doing this (giving up there baggage space for a free/highly subsidized ticket.)

Does anyone have any info on this? From most of my research I noticed most sites have membership fees? Anyone with experience?

-Tres

Courier travel really dried up post 9/11. I still hear the odd story about someone who has done it in the wake of that, but not very often. Even back in the day, it wasn't a good way to organize a RTW trip, since you typically had so little control over your destinations, and usually you had to fly short-duration returns on courier flights.

I wouldn't spend too much money on a membership with one of those organizations without some good references.

I got sucked into joining one of the courier organizations about 8 years ago with thoughts of jetting around the world on a moments notice for free, but I have yet to find a single ticket that I have been able to use. Most of them were very limited in the time you could spend somewhere and even then the prices weren't that great. I stopped checking for flights a couple of years ago - I think Felix is right that they seem to have dried up post 9/11. But that's just been my experience. I always seem to hear whispers about people who have actually pulled this off, so maybe it's theoretically possible.

Maybe someone else here has had a better experience?

Yea thats kind of the feeling i got. Oh well I just thought i should investigate.

Yeah, this has always been kind of the holy grail of budget travel. Everyone's heard of it, and knows someone who knows someone who's done it, but no one has real personal experience.

Plus, I'd be a little iffy on carrying someone else's stuff accross international borders. I don't want to be the guy rotting in a Thai prison for drug smuggling.

I'd once encountered a website that worked the opposite way - hooking up people who wanted to move packages with people who already had tickets going that way, who would take the package for a fee. But of course, I can't find it now. Maybe it didn't work as well as expected.