You have until March 31 to buy additional vacation days, up to 10, assuming that you have time in the bank (up to -30 negative) to do so.

I also strongly recommend that no one attach any days to any vacation period until all vacation awards are complete. Wait until the month of March and place them then.

Don't forget the greatest tool we have--vacation slide.

This is exactly why I bid 2 weeks starting November 25th-Dec 8th. I’ll be junior in 2018 (upgrade) so I plan on sliding this 8 days in December up until they hit a coverage day. I’m assuming my December coverage days will be December 24-26th.

for someone not bidding after primary vacation why is that?

The only reason I can see to buy & attach supplemental vacation days during the bidding process...is if you want them in the 01DEC-10JAN carve-out period. That is pursuant to the vacation award. I wanted 4 days attached to the my 25NOV-08DEC vacation. Found out afterwards that it had to be 7 days. Now that my 2 weeks of primary vacation have been awarded...even though 09DEC-15DEC is still an available week, I cannot buy and attach days in December. If I had Secondary vacation, I could buy and attach them to that week, pursuant to the bid award.

Well I suppose being an old dude that I just assumed another round of vacation bids!

In any case there certainly is nothing wrong with placing extra vacation days right now.

My *personal* preference is to do all the vacation bids first, then in March figure out exactly where I wish to place the extra days.

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makes sense...we prefer to throw our 2 weeks together for a longer vacation, maybe when i start getting 3 weeks we will switch it up.

If you're bidding any 01DEC-10JAN vacation and want to tag on extra days, even if you're an old dude and have 3 or4 weeks, you would want to do it during the bidding process. Any other time of the year it would be ok to just wait until March to buy days and have them attached.

This is how I do it. I like to bid spill weeks (i.e. starting in one month and finishing in the next). I then buy all 10 days to add to any SUPP days I may have.

Once all the vacations weeks are awarded I sit down and decide in which bid periods I want more pre-award credit for PBS purposes and add the days there. With slide and vacation-any it doesn't matter so much where the days are initially (unless you're junior to the coverage line), only that you have the pre-award credit in the bid period. This helps me get most days off possible, hopefully with my chin just above the bottom of the Line Construction Window.

If I want to make more money when that month rolls around, I can always bid for max credit and/or pick up flying. I find this gives more control over QOL. Working extra days is on my terms, and allows for some really nice long blocks of time off.

You can also easily get the 4th of July off as a junior line holder. Bid a 4 day trip on the first or 2nd of July. Leave the last few days of June open. After the July awards WS a trip at the end of June that kicks out the first trip in July. The June WS can’t be denied regardless of trip drops it creates in July.

Valid technique in principal, but need to recall that 1 Jul is actually part of the JUNE bid period. If your goal is WS, this won’t work (since a WS won’t be awarded if it conflicts with a current-month trip). Any such trip would need to start on/after *2* Jul.