Originally Posted by
Crazy Canuck
FWIW, when I was a fairly jr line holder I would bid EXTREMELY generally. Almost to the point of not even considering it a bid. I feel like I generally got a better schedule because of it. The trick is to the percentage of trips available to you by layer 7 to be greater than your bidding percentage.
As I rise up the seniority pole I've started bidding specific pairings in layer 1 and 2, and then general parameters in the other layers. Starting by being very restrictive, and gradually becoming less so.
FWIW, everybody I've talked to that's a supposed PBS authority at the company (help line, SAPA forums) says this isn't true.
There really is no direct relation between your seniority percentage and the trips available percentage in PBS. Of course there is some correlation between the two, but there is not direct relationship. It's flawed logic to try to "match" your seniority percentage and the percentage of available parings. This is simply because your preferences could very well be the complete opposite of the next persons, ending up with completely different available pairing pools, but with the same exact percentage. You just don't know what other people's bidding preferences are. A crude example would be, I bid for 50% of the available parings, but you bid for the other 50%. We both bid 50% of the parings, but have completely different pools.
Again, this is simply what I've been told the the company PBS "experts".
With all that said, I agree that by layer 7 any person (especially Jr.) would want to have the highest percentage of available pairings available for PBS to choose from. The higher the percentage = casting a wider net.