Originally Posted by zoooropa

You are leaving out a huge factor. We bid hardlines and we are paid for everything that touches our vacation. I just flew with a guy that had 182 credits in one month. I saw the pay sheet.

You drop two high credit four days (28 hours each for this example) with one week of vacation. If you are really motivated you pick both of them up during either Monthly open time or Daily open time. If you pick them both back up you get paid another 56 hours on top of your original credit. If you pick up one you can pocket an easy 28 additional hours and still enjoy a nice long stretch of days off.

Captains with four weeks of vacation can very easily bank $100k over four months by using one week of vacation and picking up a portion of what was dropped.

I usually drop down to minimum credit, but my July schedule has 23 days off and 86 hours of credit thanks to one week of vacation. I can pick up three turns and still have 20 days off with 110 hours of credit. After premium pay I would be at around 116 hours credit.

This is one of the many reasons we will never accept pref bid.