Originally Posted by
R57 relay
That's the way I understand it. You "owe" the company so many days when you have X vacation days. There was a chart out somewhere that showed how many days you had on call and how much you were paid for each week of vacation under PBS. Maybe on the APA scheduling page?
That's how you get paid more than guaranteed with vacation while on reserve. Your pro rate and vacation days add up to more days than usual.
Haven't been on reserve for a while, might try it this year during Sept to see if I can get most of the month off for 83 or so hours.
VEX days are just OFF days that you control. 4 OFF days that you can put anywhere, in any amount, on either side of vacation (or both sides) as long as they touch vacation. No credit, no pay. If you have 7 days of vacation, you look at prorate chart and depending on 30 or 31 day month, you are on hook for either 15 or 14 days of work. Meaning if you use them, they have to cram the remaining days of work into what's left. Hence, in a 30 day month, you get 11 days in a row (vacation + VEX) and in remaining 19 days you will be in call for 14 of them.
Only time you would be penalized is if you did what I did.... get two separate vacations in same month (each gets own Slide and VEX days). 14 just became 22 OFF, with VEX. But, on a 30 day month, I am on hook for 10 days according to prorate chart, but with contractually having to give me VEX, I am only available 8. Best case, 7 days available due to FAR 117. This could work out well though, because apparently PBS won't solve and you actually just get nothing awarded for month. It is now treated sorta like a hybrid and I can technically get whole month off if I am willing to sacrifice a bit of pay (just get paid for my 51:20 vacation) or i coordinate with scheduling on what days I wanna build back in to increase pay. Good way to get a whole month off...