Originally Posted by crewdawg

Another reason to bid for specific trips. PBS will actaully grab a trip off a senior persons line to give you the trip you ask for, as long as it can still fulfill the senior persons bid. As an example, lets say two bidders want a 4-day with a layover in Denver because they both want to attend one of the nights of a the week long furry convention. However, you (the junior pilot) really want to be there for the Thursday night furry drag show. You look through the bid packet and see that rotation 0069 is a 4 day that has a 30 hr layover in DEN on the Thursday, so you add a line "award if pairing number 0069." The senior bidder simply puts in a "award if layover in DEN if 4-day during furry convention."

As PBS runs through the award process, it gives rotation 0069 to the senior bidder because it fulfills all the requirements of his bids. When PBS gets to your line, it sees you want rotation 0069 and there is still another 4 day with a Den overnight left in the pot. As long as the other 4-day fulfills all the senior bidders requests, PBS will pull 0069 off his line and slap it onto your line, then award him the other 4-day.

I'm not sure how often that will happen, but as Billy Ray Valentine said, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.