So here's a new wrinkle in the March bid month computer product. There are no accepted fares (at least on the B-727) included as part of each pairing. Usually, you'd be able to call up the trip and at the bottom you'd be able to see the accepted fare. No so for March. As well, and to make matters worse, going into Expense Report Data and hitting the Accepted Fares button should bring up accepted fares for a number of months. Usually a few past months, the current month and the next (in this case) month, March. However, March is not there either.

I usually don't complain about bidding, because I'm very senior in my seat, but one of the larger issues for me is deadhead bank monies. Without knowing what the accepted fares are, prior to bidding, could put me (or anyone else who commutes) way over the bank, a totally unacceptable situation. So it's important to me to factor in bank monies when I bid, and in some cases, it's the deciding factor.

Here's another reason why it's important to have the accepted fare shown on the actual trip pairing: In February, I bid a trip that concludes with a deadhead from Reno back to Memphis. When the February bids were awarded, I called up my calendar for February and immediately printed out my pairings. On the trip I'm talking about, it showed the deadhead had a value of $735 (which was as I had expected, based on the computer pairing originally shown), and deadheaded on America West (flights 0200 & 2941). Maybe 2 or 3 days later, I got a Crew Notification on the original pairing. It showed the trip had been changed to deadhead on US Air (flights 0200 & 2941), but the new fare was about $449. I understand that they (AW and USAir) are the same airline, and in this particular case, the same flights, but somebody tried, after the bids closed, to lower the value of the deadhead by using the USAirways fare instead of the America West fare. I called flight management and discussed this with my ACP. He told me to use the higher amount, but to include a copy of the pairing (with the originally high deadhead value shown) and send it along to Crew Travel Audit.

The point of this story is that we need to really watch what they are doing with these deadheads, as some bean counter (in this case) tried to save the company a few hundred bucks, after the bids closed. I'm all for saving the company money, but once the bid opens, those kinds of expenses should be set in stone.

 

It's too early. Accepted fares are rarely available to FastBid immediately. Give it a few days.

 

I forgot local base day actually begins at 0130!! Thanks

 

Agree!

They're just not out yet. They should post them the day the bid opens, especially in light of the fact that you have 4 less days to fiddle with your bid.

Another place to look for accepted fares is in the FOX system, under Expense Report link. It only has Feb07 and earlier right now:

https://pilot.fedex.com/fox/pilot/pilotsHome.jsf

Clicking on the Accepted Fare link under VIPS Trips and Services only allows Jul06 and earlier?!

 

They aren't available on the company website either. I sent an email to my FO Spec. if we will start seeing the list sooner since we are now bidding 4 days earlier. She fwd'd it to someone else CC'ing me! No response yet.

 

Well, it's 1632 Mempho time and I just tried calling flight management to again inquire about the Accepted Fares (that are still not anywhere in the computer), and guess what? NOBODY was there. What a surprise. It's nice that everyone in that whole department can up and move out promptly at 1600 or so.

 

Hey, Memphis shut down today. We had almost an inch of snow and some of the roads got wet. The Western TN area is under a state of emergency. We're just waiting for Willie to declare martial law and ask the governor to declare the region a disaster area.

 

If you find anyone at work after lunch on a Fri, THAT would be the unusual scenario!

 

2ft plus the past 72 hrs and still snowing here in Western, CO and no disaster!

 

Ok, going to show my ignorance here: When I open the PDF bidpack from the bidpacks screen within VIPS it comes up just fine, but without the ability to tell which page I'm looking at and thus unable to print just that one page. When I look at the PDF at work there is a little counter window on the bottom of the page that lets me know the page number I'm looking at.

How do I get that window visible on my Mac? Thanks in advance.