Read the contract and the VIPs Bidding Procedures page and need the APC experts to check my public math and assumptions while waiting for the office to open on Monday.

Conundrum: Need 14ish days that cover end of one bid month and beginning of next one. I may need to get creative to cover the possibility that I can't hold the desired 2-slot/14day Vac period.

Question comes that If I split my vac into blocks of 10, 8, and 8 days, it leaves 3 days left over. The VIPs page says that for a bid to be 'valid' you can't leave less than 7 days unawarded for the next bid (not explicitly stated in the contract).

Soooo, would I get to bid 3 times and have a few buy-back days, Or only get to bid twice and have a lot of left over days?

Anybody got better strategies to share?

 

I take it you have 29 days to play with?

For any week bid at 11 days or greater, you have to be able to hold the subsequent week(s). You only need to hold the one week and get a 10 day block.

You can't leave days left over; they'll just assign left over days (gooned up or forgot to bid).

You could bid 10 days on the last week (or first week) and slide it to "straddle" or cover the 2 months in question. Then you can expand into both months up 66 total hours (watch out for Intl rules, Dec to Nov and Jan to Dec slide restrictions).

You could bid a 7 days in last week (or second to last) and then on next round depending on the month and slots left, bid 7 days first, second or third week and then bid your month to have the days off near the start of the month.

You could bid 10, 10, 9 or 8, 7, 7, 7 or 29, or 19, 10, etc. Split them to add to 29 with smallest block being 7 days.

I'm an 8,7,7,7 man myself

Don't forget you can always trade weeks with someone after all the dust settles.

 

Ahhh, public math is sooo challenging. Who would have thunk it-- 10 + 10 + 9 = 29 too, with nothing left over, that's Plan B (Plan A=14/7/7).

Gotta get new batteries for that calculator .

 

I can tell you from experience that "if" you have less than 7 days remaining, they will automatically be added to your last vacation period. IIRC, VIPS will notify you of this when you try to enter the last VAC period, "Since you will have less than 7 days remaining, you must bid all of your remaining days in this bid." (or words to that effect?).