You'd never be able to get a job if being a commercial pilot was always a secret. :)

If you have your CFI certs, put those first on the card. CFI implies you need a commercial certificate, but if you list it underneath then so be it.

At least thats how I do things.

I've always wondered the same thing. A family friend is the head of the Farmingdale FISDO in NY. He say's its holding out. By giving someone a card that says your name and "commercial pilot" on it, its saying "I dont care where you have to go, or when you need to go, but I can fly you." Yet, if someone were to say "can you fly me from NY to BWI on Dec 8th in my plane" thats obviously private carriage (given a contract is made). In the normal non-aviation world, you dont need a contract to do business with someone. In the aviation world, you need a contract to carry out private carriage, a limited number of contracts nonetheless. In this case, a business card is like an informal contract offering your services, and if you have one, you probably have about a hundred more that are being handed out at the bar, family functions, what have you. Therefore, a business card is considered common carriage/holding out. Thats the way I see it..
That being said, using "i'm a commercial pilot" to pick up a chick at the bar, is that holding out?

Thanks for the replies guys!

So I guess holding out isn't illegal unless your putting out, err, I mean have a legitimate contract to do business.

But if the act itself can get you in trouble (per the post above) then if you give someone your business card, you better hope he is ready to create a contract??!

If the customer owns the plane you don't need a contract and you can advertise or hold out all you want. Freelance corporate pilots do it all the time.

What you cannot do is provide the airplane (unless you have a 135 or 121 cert, or a specific sort of contractual arrangement).

Handing out a card that says you are commercial pilot does not imply that you are offering to provide a plane unless it says that on the card.

FSDO inspectors are notorious for being incorrect. I was once in an investigatory meeting where the two inspectors investigating a possible violation disagreed on whether the the facts (which were not in dispute) was a violation or not.

Sure he's holding out. But a risk said, it's not necessarily holding out his availability for air transportation (aircraft + pilot).

So in this case it would only be holding out if I advertise myself as a commercial pilot AND am able to provide an airplane (on my biz card)? Or it's holding out of more than several people call me up to fly THEIR airplanes after having given them my biz card (and I do it)?

Theres really no cut and dry way to explain it. Everyone has their own definitions. Instructors teach what they were taught. Their students practice what their instructors taught them. So its and ongoing circle of a theoretical game of telephone... FARs are notorious for loose interpretation, so that when a violation is questionable, the FAA can use that grey area in their favor. I'd say that the common carriage/holding out is one of the most in-the-air issues in commercial aviation. Let me go ahead and bust out my CFI thinking cap here...
Check out Advisory Circular 120-12A. It explains that "private carriers are sometimes referred to as contract carriers...and carriage is usually on a long term basis." The part that gets me is when it says private carriage is where THREE CONTRACTS is the basis of the operation, but 18-24 contracts is considered holding out....talk about one of those grey areas...That being said, the only reason to use a commercial pilot business card would be to promote business, which could be considered on par with putting your name in the yellow pages as a pilot (which is holding out). Like I said, this is my opinion, so take it for what its worth. My greatest advice would be to just call the FISDO and see what they say, because they're the ones who'd bust you if it happened to be a violation.

You can fly for as many EMPLOYERS as you want...a different one every day of the year as long as THEY provide the airplane. That's what your CPL allows to do...get paid to fly someone else's airplane for them. No limitations on advertising or how many customers you have.

A CPL does NOT allow you to run an airline (121) or charter service (135) which are operations where YOU provide the airplane. You need an operating cert to do that.

That's it, very simple.

OK, so there is a grey area exception but it does nor affect 99.99% of pilots: You can hire yourself out AND provide the airplane to an employer in a "private carriage" situation. This is a strange one, but basically you need to have a PRIVATE, ongoing arrangement with one (or even several) customers to fly them around in your airplane. This is USUALLY characterized by a long-term written contract but even that is not required. What is required is that you are NOT available to the general public, but rather only to specific private parties. Any sort of advertising, frequent changes in customers, or too many customers all cross the line of common carriage. It can be a grey area because attempts to expand such a business can quickly lead down a slippery slope. But don't worry too much about this it is a very rare situation...but it does create a lot of confusion.

If you are a commercial pilot you can advertise your flying services all you want...just don't advertise or provide the airplane too.

And yes there are a lot of idiot CFI's and even some FSDO people with gross misconceptions about this.

It does. It's doesn't help that there is such a thing as a Part 135 =private= carriage certificate and so far, I have not come across even one case in which the FAA has treated what appears to be "private carriage" as something in which an operating certificate was not required.