Haven’t looked at the actual language but I was able to swap for Thanksgiving off this year. That was reserve days though. Denied at first, but as coverage worsened for the weekend off days I wanted to swap, it went through.

ATL 717B has Dec 24, 25, and 26 blue by ~3 reserves each day. Obviously that won’t last past the first PCS run but at least a few people will get the opportunity to swap out of Christmas.

Newly converted to a line holder, probably just for the December month..... New Guy so bear with me, I think I am reading the Alert and SRH correctly.

If I use 1 payback day to drop a 4 day trip, it will drop the entire trip (assuming coverage) and pay me the credit from the first day?

It won't break up the 4 day into a 1 day drop and then a 3 day fly. But I could pick up (WS/GS) over that time as well.....

Yes. So assuming you want to fly on those days (and aren't dropping the trip for certain days off), pick the trip in Dec. with the highest BLOCK on day one to get the most pay out of your PB. Credit pays out on the last day of the trip, so that's why I mention looking at the block time on day one.

You can WS/GS for sure on the last 3 days of the trip, don't have the SRH handy but someone else can answer if you can fly over day one (you cannot fly over any day dropped using your APD or IVD).

Not only can you fly over a PB day, you can actually put a WS in for the same trip that you are dropping via the PB day (or any other) and it will be right back on your schedule on the same PCS run (unless: 1-someone senior to you has put in a blind WS for those days and snags it, or 2- you've reached the credit limit for WS pickup) as the PB time that you drop will count as credit for the month.

I've traded trips off Christmas in two pre-pandemic years using this technique, as puddytatt pointed out I guess each specific day has to be worse with a holiday touch, but some years the weekends that are not xmas have had worse coverage than the actual holiday.

Does DH credit on day 1 count? i.e. will the PB day on day 1 include pay for the DH, or purely block time?

Yes, DH credit counts.

Awesome. Thanks so much all!

FWIW, so does duty credit. Anything that applies to that day specifically (block, dh, mu, duty credit, dpm) pats on that day. Anything that applies to the whole trip (trip rig, adg) pays on the last day.