I may be missing something (its been known to happen!
) but I've used the new system twice so far with pretty solid results. In the past, the secondary system was smoke and mirrors, and if you didn't get a trip you wanted and someone junior did the answer was "..its a request...", which I always translated as "so what?" Nobody cared.
Now, you get to ask for specific trips or R day blocks. If someone senior has already requested them, its indicated by a symbol. Doesn't mean you won't get it, because it may not be their first request, but it gives you SA that the trip may not be available. When the requests are processed, a report shows the WHY you did or didn't get your request. My whopping two data points shows a pretty straightforward answer. Every trip I didn't get went to someone senior, or conflicted with a trip I requested higher. Now--I'm in a SMALL base, with a smaller number of trips, and thus it isn't too hard to just make a list of trips I want and rank order them. If I was still on the -11 with 500+ of my friends it might be a more tedious process. But I rather liked the process--so much in fact I bid secondaries pretty high this month.
The complaint I hear is there are R day blocks included with the trips. Fact is secondary lines always had R days available to schedulers, you just get to see the options now. There are also times that you might want reserve--if you live domicile--or a mix of trips and R days.
PBS back door? I dunno. If that's a concern then perhaps a cap on numbers or percentages would be a solution.
The other reason I like the new is more a reason I hated the old one--involuntary conversions. I had R lines converted multiple times, usually lines I picked because I wanted a particular date off. Three guesses as to what happened when I got converted...
Again--I'm not an expert on it yet, and there may be issues I will find out later. The previous system, however, was so profoundly disappointing to me on multiple occasions I never bid secondaries except as a last resort. Reserve was equally vexing due to the risk of getting inversed. I'm gonna try it and ride this horse for a while...