Go on...
Would love to hear thoughts on optimizing the use of PB days.

IMO, the best way to optimize PB days is to bid a regular line and then drop the trips with PB days (if able). Then you can either try and green slip or take the time off and enjoy. The Scheduling Reference Handbook put out by the union explains the different ways PB days can be used.

Denny

Thanks Denny - my plan right now is to hold on to them until year 2 pay then do exactly what you said. Hoping the rest of the summer provides opportunity to save a few more.

Keep in mind, end of calender year they turn into vacation days. You can still use them as pb till march.

Big picture, they dont stay in bank forever.

When do you start year two? If it's after the March 2018 bid period, use them this year. As Sputnik said, PB days from this year will be added to your vacation days for next year. They are called supplemental days and will be bid with vacation for 2018. You can still use them as PB days until the start of the April bid period. To use them in the Jan-Mar time frame, you will have to call crew scheduling and they do it manually.

Denny

Good info - I'll change over in October.

Also, you can use PBs to get paid for your APD, but you have to call the CPSC or get a really good scheduler to do it. You can't do it automatically on icrew like you can with normal PDs.

And use them on the last day of the trip to preserve credit pay.

I believe the only time you can use PB days to cover an APD is the Jan-Mar time frame. I tried to do this a couple years ago and initially the scheduler did it then I got a call back saying "oops" that's not contractually legal.......except for the time frame I listed.

Denny

I did it in may, but it took a rather experienced southern gentleman in the CPSC to get it done.

That's one option, but IMO its way better to bid 3 days on at a time and use a single PB day to drop the middle day. An alternative strategy is bid 5 on and drop the middle day. Not quite as good but still severely limits what they can give you. With that strategy you can often get almost a month off (with the occasional 1 day trip or SC unused) with the PB days earned from a single reserve GS. Now that's some serious ROI.