How To (Vacation) Bid Thanksgiving Off
 

As we build out Flight Crew Tools, one idea has been to include a blog side of the site that will host articles on how to increase QOL, $ or hopefully both.

The following post was put together with the hopes of having a blog ready by now, but since vacation bidding is already here, it makes more sense to just get it out there.

Hopefully someone finds this helpful

Delta Vacation Bidding – How to maximize your chances of getting Thanksgiving Off, Regardless of Seniority


Want to avoid another year of working EVERY holiday?

Do you perennially throw in the towel after the first round (Primary) awards are out? All the good weeks are gone anyways, right? Wrong.

Here we're going to outline a bidding technique that I’ve been using for several years (including a few as a category plug) to ensure that I wouldn’t spend another Thanksgiving eating Snickers bars from a vending machine in Fargo.

This post is broken down into 3 sections:
1. The applicable PWA provisions required to execute this maneuver. These are the tools in your toolkit.

2. How the technique works

3. When you should look to implement it


#1. Know the Contract
There are many vacation related PWA sections. ALPA has put out reams of comm on the subject, but if you’re like me, your eyes probably glaze over immediately from all the legalese.

Here are the high points, in plain English, that you need to know to get Thanksgiving off:

a) Vacation Bidding Rounds – there are 5 of them. If you haven’t pulled this off by the end of Secondary bidding, you’re likely too late. Primary bidding closes on January 8th. Secondary closes on January 19th.

b) Vacation Weeks – all but the very newest new-hires have at least 2 weeks. All vacation weeks begin on a Sunday. Your primary & secondary weeks are your greatest vacation asset. Have a plan for them.

c) Purchased/Supplemental (SUPP) Days - You can purchase up to 10 days (at 3:30/day) every vacation year through the Full Service Bank. SUPP days are Payback Days (usually from GS/IA trips or Qualification Training over X-days/OFF days) from the previous year that have converted into extra vacation days. For brevity, let’s refer to these as Extra VAC Days.

d) Placement of Extra VAC Days – This is where the magic happens. If you can tip-toe through the (2) date carve-outs, and place your Extra VAC Days in a timely manner, you can guarantee yourself certain time off. Even if you couldn’t normally hold it in the Vacation or PBS bidding processes. More on this in a minute.

#2. How the Thanksgiving technique works
This section covers how to actually execute this technique. I find it makes the most sense to work through the process chronologically:

Step 1
Your first objective should always be to attempt to grab the weeks you want during the Bidding Rounds. Huddle with your spouse, your calendar, and your crystal ball, and see what you can get on your Primary award. Senior pilots generally snap up summer, spring break, Christmas & Thanksgiving in Round 1. If those are your priorities, your primary bid should be entered as follows:

1) Summer Weeks
2) Spring Break
3) Christmas
4) Thanksgiving
5) The week beginning on Sunday AFTER Thanksgiving
6) Other weeks you’d like in priority order…

Step 2
You likely noticed priority #5 and, being a smart pilot, are already starting to put this all together. (Spoiler alert: it has to do with placing Extra VAC days) The primary award is now out, and you either got something you really wanted, or most likely ended up with that funny week beginning on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Let’s take that fork in the road, since that’s what this entire post is about. So what do you do with this week?

Step 3
Assuming you take action prior to April 1st, you can place your Extra VAC Days at the beginning or end of an awarded vacation week. Since you were on top of it, and placed your days prior to the start of the next vacation year (April 1st) there is no need for company concurrence!

Since there is an exception in the PWA prohibiting placing Extra VAC Days in December (and the first 10 days of January), you can’t add them at the end of this week. Instead, add them to the beginning of your primary week.

There is no prohibition on placing days in November, so pick a nice round number like 3 and start adding them to the front of your week: 1) Saturday, 2) Black Friday and finally 3) Thursday, aka Thanksgiving! Of course you can keep adding more days if you want more time off to get to your mother-in-law’s house…

#3. When to Consider Using This Technique
Like everything in our lives, vacation awards come down to seniority and preference. With that in mind, we can further break this section down into senior and junior pilot considerations:

Senior
Life is good at the top of the rock pile. You got that sweet 3-week block of Vacation in the summer, and plan to disappear on a ski trip to South America for all of July.

You didn’t want, or need, to use this technique in round 1. However, it’s now round 2 and all the good stuff appears to be gone. You could bid a week in December and just have PBS slide it later, or you could run this technique to guarantee Thanksgiving off. Certainly if the Sunday-After-Thanksgiving week is still available going into round 3, you probably want to shoot for it.

Junior
Your primary bid is probably going to look a lot like the priorities laid out in Part #2, Step 1. The Bidding Rounds are working in your favor here. Even the most senior pilot can’t bid for a summer week AND Thanksgiving off in the same round. Either way, it’s unlikely ALL of your priorities are gone when the computer gets to you. If you end up with the Sunday-after-Thanksgiving week you execute this technique, using the steps outlined above.

Summary
Hopefully you found this post helpful. Do you have any tips that could benefit other pilots? If so, please send them in to [email protected] and we will incorporate them into future posts. Happy bidding!

This is why I spend countless hours lurking online forums. Great info-thank you.

In the SRH it says that unbid SUPP vac days will be added to the last round of your vacation bid. Are you saying you can LATER move them to join up with an awarded vacation week (nonwithstanding DEC/JAN exemptions)?

Thanks

My bid is in. Erase this gouge immediately!:D

Yes. That’s exactly right. The SRH elaborates on when/where you can move them. You can call the Vacation desk in Crew Planning and move them up until the end of March (carveouts notwithstanding) without company concurrence, even if they’re already attached to another vacation.

This works for any vacation week btw. I use it a lot to add to the beginning & end of most of my vacation weeks. Last year with 1 vacation week and 9 PB (became SUPP) days, I was able to take most of August off.

IMO most pilots don’t fully utilize the power of the Full Service Bank and/or PB days. It’s a nice piece of the PWA that can boost QOL.

Regarding Dec-Jan 10 and expanding by a block of seven consecutive purchased/supp days, if you request those 7 extra vacation days be added to the beginning or end of your initial vacation bid, could you be awarded two consecutive weeks of vacation in a single (primary, secondary...) bid if they're both available?

Yes, and that’s a good option if you only have 2 weeks and want to have another vacation block elsewhere in the year.

If you’ve been here awhile (meaning you have 3+ weeks to bid), you would probably just bid 2 weeks in a given round, since the weeks have to be available in December & first 10 of January anyways.

Disclaimer - I read the SRH and PWA as well as this post and I am a first time vaca bidder.

I purchased three SUPP VAC days from my FSBank...

When I put my primary bid in for this round, am I supposed to put "3" at the top line where it asks me about my SUPP days (since I want them before)? Or can I just leave it zero for now and add it later?

I thought I had it figured out but when I actually put '3' there, the next screen is a warning that makes it sound like I might not get awarded a vacation week I could otherwise hold.

Help? Does that make sense?

Should I just leave each line '0' and then add the supp days later on after the week is awarded? Is that possible?

Thanks in advance.

I've never tried to place them on the bid itself. Just a guess but I'm thinking that warning is probably about the Dec-Jan10 carveout, meaning the week (prior in your case) must be available or the week will not be awarded.

There is no downside to waiting until after your week is awarded, which is how I always play it. Just leave that block blank and, after your weeks are awarded, call the vacation office to place them where you want them (keeping the carveouts in mind.)

Even if you wait until your last round, and they are automatically attached to your final vacation, you can still move them AS LONG as you do it by the end of March (prior the beginning of the next vacation year, which begins on April 1st.)

One other thought, you MIGHT want to consider doing 4 days to have Wednesday off as well. If you commute, you might end up with a trip that finishes late, making it hard to get home. In base it doesn't matter so much, but if you're a junior commuter it might be worth the peace of mind to buy that extra day.

What time on the 8th do the bids close?

2359E 08Jan18. It's been on the front page of icrew every time you log in for literally a month.
/snark.

So I'm in the fortunate position of being still relatively new but close to 40% in domicile (hello Mad Dog!). I've got two weeks of vacation to bid and would like the first week of April (Spring Break) and the last block in December (New Years and school break). Given my seniority I can hold any of this stuff off anyway, but I struggle to prioritize them.

Do the Spring Break blocks (block 1) actually get snapped up before the Xmas/New Years blocks (block 40)?

I also have a zero'd Bank. Is there any benefit to me purchasing a few extra vacation days to add to the Spring Break week of vacation (block 1)?

Thanks!

Just an educated guess but if you can bid them off via a regular schedule, I’d probably use the vacation to bid the December week off first and then go for spring break second. There are more restrictions in December with bidding etc and I’ll bet more people want that time off than a particular spring break.

I think most guys bid to get Xmas, summer, and thanksgiving vacation (not necessarily in that order) before they worry about spring break...

Denny

I can’t remember from last year, how long does it normally take for primary vaca awards to come out?

they are out via backdoor. go to Move-up Vacation bids, select next year 'N', and then select an option. It shows up under primary there. VTS data won't show it because it says vacation processing in progress.

let's follow up here...


for that part, how do i add a day at the beginning from my bank? All i want is my vacation to start one day earlier. figure its easier to just confirm it now instead of trying to bid it off since we are buying tickets/hotels.

I always wait until I have all my vacations awarded, but you can do it any time prior to April 1st (minding the carveouts).

Specifically, go into iCrew->Pay Hours->Bank->Add/Update Bank Request->Enter Option 3 & how many days you want. The result will be reflected on your Time Card.

Then sometime before 4/1, call the Vacation Desk and let them know where you would like to place your purchased days. If you don't do this before your final vacation week is awarded, it will automatically be added to that vacation. Still no big deal, as you can still move them around up until the vacation year begins (and after, but with more restrictions.)

For the Vacation Desk phone number, and some more good information, go to Deltanet->Search: "Vacation Bidding Tips". This will return a pdf with all the info you need + the phone number to call.

Relevant Language from the Scheduling Reference Handbook:

okay thanks! Still only getting 2 weeks and I bid for them back to back so I'm done after primary round.

Great thread I wish I would have read before the bids closed! My #1 choice was week 35 (November 25th) and I was awarded 2 weeks. I was also given 2 additional days due to my healthy category scoring under the 5.5% sick threshold which were placed on Black Friday and Saturday.

However...I have purchased 4 days from the bank and I attempted to have them attached to the back of my vacation. I didn’t understand the 01DEC-10JAN carve out. So those days weren’t awarded. Question #1 - I just call up the vacation hotline number and request where I want them? Question #2 - it appears that my only option for their placement is Monday-Thanksgiving Day and that I no longer have any option to buy further days (until after April 1st, staffing permitting and company concurance).

Again, great thread.

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.

Sent from my SM-G900T3 using Tapatalk

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.

Flightcrewtool,
Are you planning on charging a fee for the jumpseat listing tool?

Hey now

I forgot about the change in the monthly start date but it actually makes it easier. Just shift things a day.

Hank,

Yes. We have to pay for the flight schedule data that we display within the Jumpseat Tool. As the site has grown (rapidly) more popular, the associated costs have kept pace to the point where we have no choice but to pass some of that along.

Everyone gets 5 free lookups/listings, which should give a regular commuter most of a month to decide if it's worth the time savings or not vs. the old manual way with myIDtravel. Overall the feedback has been pretty positive, but we're more interested in hearing what could be done to make it better. If you haven't tried it yet, give it a shot (no obligation) and let me know what you think:

https://flightcrewtools.com/jumpseat

Tools on the site that have minimal associated costs for us (i.e. the Seniority Tool & AE Tools) are free for all Delta pilots:

https://flightcrewtools.com/delta

Good one. I've thought about trying this before, with a backup of bidding to finish early on the 4th.

The 2 strategies I've seen work pretty well for Xmas are to:

1. Go on a YS frenzy early in the month, in hopes of timing out (I'm not a fan of working that hard for such a risky potential payoff)

OR

2. Strategically GS to have PB days roll over the holiday. I believe Denny Crane actually pulled this one off this year with a CDG GS (if that was actually you on our JS from SEA to JFK...)

Lots of crafty ways to get holidays off other than brute force seniority

It's an excellent tool. I book probably twice a month. I usually buy a ticket to work, so I use it coming home. Nice job.

in typical pilot fashion...any discounts for signing up for a year and prepaying?

We are definitely working on it. The credit card processing fees we pay for doing monthly charges instead of annual are brutal. Cutting it down to one charge a year would allow us to cut the price a bit and still keep the lights on.

Hoping to roll that out with some improvements to the Jumpseat Tool in the next few weeks. Look for an email announcement when we get it all set up.

Stinks you guys got shut down.

Here’s a follow up on the vacation post with things I learned this vacation bidding cycle.

If you bid supp days that touch 01DEC-10JAN and you haven’t bought the days in the bank or you didn’t buy a 7-day block, you will STILL get your normal vacation awarded that touches that month, it will just disregard your supp day request. (Happily found this out first hand...it disregarded my supp bid and still gave me my #1 vacation choice)

You have to bid for and buy 7-days from the bank and you have to request 7 supp days during the primary, secondary etc vacation run. You must have the seniority to hold that week or your 7 supp days won’t be awarded.

You can’t add supp days to 01DEC-10JAN after the fact. Any other day of the year, minus those 40-ish days, you can just purchase from the bank and email or call crew scheduling to have supp days added to your vacation.

Vacation strategy worked great..got the vacation a few days before Thanksgiving and plan to use my purchased days to tag onto the front end. I can't seem to find the number for the vacation desk on DLnet to call and place the days..can somebody PM me the number or point me in the right direction? Somebody said maybe there is a VRU link? Thanks

Congrats on getting what you wanted.

I use email vice the phone: [email protected]

Had confirmation back the next weekday.