In the practice runs I have seen, junior guys are getting 23 days off in a vacation month. It's really quite different than other PBS systems. It's very graphic oriented, but there is NO trade lockout and it even shows a color-coded calendar when you log in specific to your senority that will show you which days off you have a better chance of getting. For example, if you don't care which days you work and you just want a ton of days off, you can use that tool accordingly and bid for high credit trips on days (weekends and such) that would be difficult for you to hold off if you are junior. Conversely, if you really need a certain weekend off, you can prioritize it over other days to hold it off. After seeing the ins and outs, it's main strength is it largely eliminates "bidding blind" because you see real-time what everyone else is doing. Now, is going to be 100% accurate if some guys senior to you have bid? No. Will it give you a general idea though? Yes.

I was staunchly anti-PBS a while ago until I decided to try it by bidding down into the secondary and I liked it. Once I got educated on the ins and outs of it and the conditions under which we would use it in a phase one scenario, I think for most guys it will be superior to line bidding.