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How To (Vacation) Bid Thanksgiving Off

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How To (Vacation) Bid Thanksgiving Off

Old 01-04-2018, 10:12 AM
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Default 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
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Old 01-04-2018, 10:16 AM
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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!

Last edited by Scoop; 01-04-2018 at 12:05 PM.
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Old 01-04-2018, 12:07 PM
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This is why I spend countless hours lurking online forums. Great info-thank you.
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Old 01-04-2018, 01:06 PM
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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
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Old 01-04-2018, 01:20 PM
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My bid is in. Erase this gouge immediately!
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Old 01-04-2018, 01:32 PM
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Originally Posted by blue vortex View Post
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
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.

Last edited by FlightCrewTools; 01-04-2018 at 01:56 PM.
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Old 01-04-2018, 01:46 PM
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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?
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Old 01-04-2018, 01:54 PM
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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.
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Old 01-07-2018, 04:03 PM
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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.
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Old 01-07-2018, 06:01 PM
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Originally Posted by NJGov View Post
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.
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