Lurking the Reserve Avail List is a great technique to guage how much pilots are getting used, especially near the end of a month when everyone is likely to have been on call an equalized amount. Even check a few pilots' schedules. Pro tip: if you check a prior month's schedule, it only shows to that pilot if they look at thier old schedule. I'm not creeped out when a random dude checks my schedule, but if you are, that can mitigate it somewhat...

FWIW, I was able to get some sleep on every crossing I had except 2, and I think both of those were first break. At least on the 765 (aka 'the 400'), every departure was between about 7 and 10 or so. So first break might be a little early to get to sleep easily on the earliest departure. We also only had 6 departures a night in a relatively small category. The 330 is bigger, and getting bigger still. So they may have had more departures earlier. Can't speak to that.

It's been posted before, but for anyone who's not seen WB sleep 'norms', on the layovers, most people try not to sleep on the van/bus to the hotel (which in some places like London or Paris can be a challenge), then crash for only about 3 hours. Some people will do the "ironman" and head straight out to see the sights, but that's pretty brutal on the body to do very often. I couldn't ever do it, personally. For the rest of us, after that 3-hour nap, get up, get a workout, and go out to dinner with the crew and maybe tour a bit. Then go back to the hotel at local bedtime, and crash hard for a full "night's" sleep. Then, when you are getting up 0200 on your body clock, you have just had a full night's rest. Take another nap on the crossing back. It's pretty manageable if you stick to that routine. The key is getting some sleep on the crossings, IMO. Also, at the time Sonata was a sleep aid which had a 6-hour no-fly time after taking it. I think the FAA raised that time now. But it was approved for "circadian rhythm disruption associated with International travel". I took it and reported it on my FAA 8500 every time. Having said that, when I was out on disability 5 years ago, coming back the FAA wanted 3 years of pharmacy records to demonstrate I wasn't using it for other than official trips. Dumb. Talk to your AME about it, as it does help ensure you get a good nights rest before coming back.

I believe it pays at the higher rate - which is to say Guarantee pays at the end of the bid month's pay rate. I went back to an older PAS in my anniversary month, and it was paid at a rate actually slightly higher than the higher rate of the two listed. Weird. But it wasn' "prorated" between the two, if that helps.