Not having done it because I haven’t used vacation yet but some strategies I’ve been thinking about that should be doable to maximize pay AND get a few extra days:

1). Bid for lines that have a few days off either side of you vacation and high value sequence(s) during your vacation days. DTS doesn’t matter for this.

2). Bid for lines that have sequences with only 1 day sticking out of your vacation but the other 3 days of that sequence are high block days and DON’T use DTS. Once the trip is on your schedule as a 1 day sequence, trade it to another place in the month. Any 1 day can be traded for any 2 day.

3). Use DTS to maximize time off. Preferrably one high block day touches either side of your vacation with 3 low block days on either side of your vacation being dropped, then you have an additional 2 or 3 days off already built into the schedule for the trips that were dropped. You now have large chunk of days off but have taken a hit to your pay value. Make up the difference (and maybe more than make up the difference) by picking up OT on some of those days but leave yourself a little more than a week off for your vacation. If you go this route, I’d focus on full trips during the 48 hour OT window. They award full trips before partials.

3) As Pedro said, transition gives you the opportunity to do quite a bit of different things, perhaps even in combination with all three above. You could even use DTS on one month’s bid and not on the other. Also, a lot of lines have more time off built into the schedule at the begining of the month and other lines have 1 or 2 day trips to start the month which are easy to trade to other places in the schedule. I’ve got my one week of vacation ‘near’ the transition for these reasons.