I see it the way Timbo does.

Since vacation only shows as pay once the month starts, you can still fly a full month of credit on top of the vacation pay.

So every time 4 pilots in a category senior to you fly one month with a week of vacation with a "regular" months' worth of flying it eliminates the need for another pilot in that category for a month.

If ONLY 4 guys do that every month that is a seat the conpany does not have to fill. every WB captain gets 5 weeks of vacation a year, so it only takes 2.4 captains to pick up 1 trip extra on their vacation months to eliminate a WB CA slot.

THAT is why vacation sellback and provisions that emulate sellback are bad for pilot progression.

We have 2584 WB CA's. If they all fly an extra trip during vacation(they don't all do I'm sure).

Together they have 12,920 months of vacation.
Divide that by 4 to equal a "month of flying".
Divide that by 11 to get a "year of flying" (not 12 because the new pilot gets his 5 weeks of vacation).

When ONLY the WB CA's fly full months during vacation as allowed by the PWA, it can* allow the company to staff:

294 LESS WB CA's

That is a lot of seats, and why the ability to fly extra during vacation is bad for all of us.... The funny part is if the NC brought forth a TA that prohibited picking up on vacation there would be guys *****ing about it.... I still hope that we are trying to eliminate that practice in the future.