Originally Posted by
tallpilot
The only flexibility in the summer months is turning pass all off, balloting high credit trips and trying to race to 79:46 (the minimum to make the 5:15 daily credit enough to exceed the 85 limit) before your last day of availability. Then one can get 3-4 days off guaranteed at the end of the bid period, perhaps even a couple more with very judicious placement of the guaranteed 4 day off block.
The slower months aren't quite as brutal but flexibility (defined as getting specific days off) remains quite limited for the junior pilot.
Yep, ended up getting my last two reserve days off from maxing out which was nice because it fell over the weekend. I strategized for that to happen but it took some work. Also I have noticed that CS is keen to this and will purposely not use you at some point towards the end of the month to make sure you are available for at least a couple days during your last reserve block. However with IROPs they had no choice but to use me and give me the weekend off.