Looking for advice on how to manage a long day trip that includes a planned deadhead. I'm a short call reserve captain. Got a quick call to do a Cabo turn out of CLT. We would fly the leg to Cabo and then deadhead back. Two pilots deadheaded down with us to fly back. 10 am departure time. Leg down took 5+59, leg back was 4+28. Landed in CLT at 2130.

My questions are this: How many crew meals should have been boarded for us and the deadhead pilots out of CLT? We would be flying over two meal periods, lunch and dinner How do you know if crew meals would be provided from Cabo if you've never flown this trip before? (none were). What does our contract say about required seating for deadheads? When should we get our boarding passes for the deadhead back? In CLT before departure? (That's what we did. Took awhile And it required a call to systems to get us out of center seats.) Bonus question: Our PHX based flight attendants said they were illegal contractually to fly back to CLT because the planned block time for the day was going to exceed ten hours. We delayed about 30 minutes before they were able to contact their schedulers for clarification who told them they were legally scheduled for less than ten hours originally. Was that correct for them?

Thanks for any suggestions.