As I understand, you will start at FO pay but as soon as you are awarded a captain seat, either through standing bid or regular vacancy, you begin receiving captain pay. If you have the hours and qualify, you might as well put in for the standing bid to get the pay sooner. That being said, not 100% sure there is currently a standing vacancy. Prior to the vacancy that was just announced, pretty much everyone would and I think most still are saying to expect 145 to NY as junior captain, but there were not any 145 captain seats for either NY or ORD this time around, so who knows.