Originally Posted by
WhatNow
It was valueless. There was no vacation bank in those days. You got paid the value of any trips that touched your primary or secondary vacation week. All other vacation weeks touching trips were dropped however you were only paid for time within the actual vacation footprint. As a example if you touched a 4 day trip with the last day of your tertiary vacation by one day you got the value of that one day only. You then had to scramble to pick up time for a full month. If any week touched nothing you got nothing.
In actual practice as a junior guy I could usually get a 3 day trip inside of vacation so I would get somewhere between 15 and 18 hours pay. You could also bid reserve instead. If you could place the vacation exactly between blocks of off days you would get seven additional days off for the month. If however you ended up with 4 off days inside the vacation you only got 3 additional days off. Pay was the reserve guarantee regardless.
IIRC, there was also a sell back provision that the pilots in their highest 2 years compensation wise used to increase their FAE. That did assign a value to the vacation weeks, but I don't recall what it was. Also, with move ups-partial and full month, you could often modify your schedule to maximize vacation. I don't remember why, but training months always paid out big. Pay-no credit I guess.