Originally Posted by rickair7777

That's not what I'm talking about. Although at an airline with over 4,000 pilots I personally paid a HUGE QOL price for MANY years because I deferred the class date they offered me to take one two weeks later because the wife wanted to go on vacation. Three folks from my class, all senior, ended up in the same very small base that I did for about a decade. If I had taken the earlier class I would have been about 20% higher which would have saved me a lot of reserve, weekends, and holidays. They were doing so much hiring at the time that I didn't think two weeks mattered, despite what older, wiser folks told me. Now I know. When I went to the major I took the first class offered, and so far that's saved me at least a year of reserve. Learn from the mistakes of others. Usually I'm pretty good at that, but in this I'M the bad example to learn from.

One month as a legacy CA off reserve will pay at least $30K. How many months of that do you want to leave on the table?

Now there is the time value of money to consider, if you're heavily in debt now and can knock that down with a big bonus that might be worth it for peace of mind even if the long-term math doesn't work out. I could see myself doing that.

But if it's just the difference between affording a high-end honda or a low-end acura now, I'd consider the long game.

But again QOL first. That directly influences divorce, which is probably the biggest threat to your financial future.