Originally Posted by
Gulfasaurus
Interesting perspective I hadn't thought about it this way. My reasons report shows that trip awarded as coverage in the pre-award line. Later down in my preferences I had a "award pairing if layover in XXX" line, which was one of the layovers on the coverage trip. Under that line it says "1 awarded for coverage". Does that mean I would have gotten another coverage trip had I not bid that line or I was going to be given that trip no matter what?
Yes, from my limited exposure to this I believe if you are on the hook for coverage - it is supposed to look at your requested trips and try to assign one of those before putting a random trip on you for coverage. So it's a good idea to bid trips you can tolerate if you're likely to be subject to coverage. Also I think it does the coverage first, then runs your bids as usual, that's why it's at the top of the reasons report.
I believe there is info on this in the SRH or PBS handbook (sorry don't have them to hand) and also an Engage podcast that explains coverage.