Know a guy who a couple years ago, had a 1000 hours in his make-up bank. Said that was the equivalent of an extra year with his daughter. Depending on seat manning, you can drop trips into your make-up bank no sweat.

If you REALLY need a day off and the drop is denied multple times for "insufficient manning" your ACP can approve a Personal Emergency drop. Those hours can come out of your Vacation or Sick, or go into your Make-up bank. If you try to drop a trip multiple times then call in sick, expect a phone call.

On the other side of the coin, picking up extra flying at straight time, (If there are "Open Time" trips available) you can trip-trade ADD up to 12hrs a month and go into the hole up to 6hrs in your make-up bank. A negative balance in your makeup bank gets zero'd at the start of the month. So, a guy could goose his pay by 18hrs a month with a zero make-up balance.