Originally Posted by crewdawg

I'm not sure I completely understand your goals but I'll assume you know that a 3, 4 and 5 day trip will get you in the LCW. If that's the case I'd structure my bid as follows.

- award (insert 3 day rotations I prefer) limit 1
- award (insert 4 day rotations I prefer) limit 1
- award (insert 5 day rotations I prefer) limit 1
- avoid if total pairing credit > 0
- award 3-5 days limit 1
- avoid if total pairing credit > 0
- award 3-5 days limit 1
- avoid if total pairing credit > 0
- award 3-5 days limit 1
- avoid if total pairing credit > 0
- award 3-5 days limit 1
- avoid if total pairing credit > 0


This method would allow you to get a 3, 4 and a 5 day that gets in the LCW, then stop. However, if you didn't get one of those trips, the subsequent lines would try to add one 3-5 trip at a time to try to get you up to the LCW. The danger is that you get awarded a 5 and a 4 day, can't get a 3 day, then get slapped with a 5 day on the subsequent lines. It's hard to give you complete advice without knowing your full desires. Are you willing to take more trips (read: 3-days) to stay closer to the window? If so, replace the 'award 3-5 days limit 1' with four attempts at 3 days, 3 attempts at 4 day and 3 attempts at 5 days. I personally never want to fly a 5 day again, so I'd actually go down to 2 and 1 days to try to snipe the bottom of the window.

As mentioned above, when you build something you're not sure of, give the bid assist folks a call, they'll help clarify things for you.