Originally Posted by Herkflyr

It all depends on the individual of course. But if you live local, bidding reserve in a vacation month will get you a little more pay. Each vacation day is worth a little bit more than the equivalent reserve day. So you get more than you would have for a full month of reserve (though not a great deal more) and of course you also had a week of vacation to boot. Not a bad gig.

BONUS GOUGE. I recently left the 717, and the company is now doing to the 88 what they did to the 717 fleet numerous times, in that they are building bid packages with 90%+ four and five day trips. Many pilots don't like that, so what might you be able to do?

The one "ace in the hole" that the pilot group has for domestic categories is the "min on call day" rule of three (versus four for international categories). That means that the minimum number of days you have to have on call, when PBS builds your reserve schedule (if that is what you wished) is only three.

If you don't have vacation and bid reserve, there will inevitably be a string of on call days of four or more. But if you have even one week of vacation, much less more, then you can build a legal reserve line where you never are on call more than three days at a stretch.

So when the company builds 717 (or M88) bid packages with overwhelmingly high percentages of 4-5 day trips, despite endless requests for a more varied trip mix, then I take the attitude (if I had vacation) "Ok, fine. You build a bid package with 90% (or more) four and five day trips, then I will bid a reserve line where I'm never on call more than three days at a stretch. I'll enjoy not being very usable, and you did it to yourself."

I did this several times, and it usually worked out well. I either didn't get called at all, or it was some broken up trip that was half a published trip, lots of dh, very little block time, etc.