I saw a previous thread talking about payback day usage but it didn't completely answer my question. I know of an epic trick to use all of one's payback days by using a seinor friend. I have 5 days to use and someone willing to help out. How exactly do I execute this (spelled out for a dummy like me)? What kind of pickup limits do I need to be aware of and how to I (and the other person) avoid them? What pitfalls do I need to be aware of? Thanks for the help!

 

In essence, you need to PB drop a trip. Your friend needs space under the cap to WS the trip. You can then buddy swap the trip back onto your line. PCS runs twice so it's possible a junior pilot can have a blanket WS in to take the trip, although unlikely at this point. There might be an additional trick if you do this more then once because of a limit on the number of things on a single day
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To expound on what was said above:

1. Ensure your partner has enough WS pickup limit to pick up the trip
2. Ensure you and your partner are micrew friends. While not necessary, it expedites the process since micrew friends in the same category can go and add/drop/swap trips to/from each other directly.
3. The helper needs to enter seperate WS requests equal to the number of PB days to be burned. So 5 PB days means 5 WS requests need to be entered. I believe you can only enter up to 15 WS requests, so if you have more than 15 days to burn then eventually they will need to enter additional requests after you've burned 15 days. This is the last thing the partner needs to do. Everything else is on your end.
4. Before each PCS run, you need to enter the rotation you want to drop with PB day(s) on the PB day request form in icrew. Remember you need to specify how many PB days you want to use (unless you are using a 1 day trip). Generally it is most bang for your buck to be using a trip with super high block on the first day and only use 1 PB day per drop.
5. Every PCS run does the complete coverage loop twice. During the first loop, it will try to drop your rotation. If coverage is good, it will drop with the PB day. If coverage is bad, your rotation will show as a Q trip. Then during the second loop of the same PCS run your friend will get the rotation as a WS, no matter if the rotation was picked up out of open time or as a Q trip. The pay will then show on your schedule and timecard as TOFF (see more detail below).
6. After the PCS run, and before the next run, you go view your friend's schedule in micrew and swap the trip back to your schedule. No input from them is necessary.
7. Repeat steps 4-6 until you use up your PB days and end back up with the rotation. Or if you are borrowing a trip from another person's schedule then just dont' take it back to your schedule at the very end.

The first PB day used will show as TOFF. They then stack from there on the same spot showing TOF2, TOF3, etc up until TOF9. At that point if you use another PB day icrew will look for the first open day on your calendar and start over again with TOFF, and again stacking until you reach 9 or run out of PB days to use.

 

This post should be stickied on this forum. Really good information.

 

Corrollary question, what is the best/most efficient use of PB days on RES? I know that I can make more money dropping trips ... but I'm not, nor do I think I will be, a REG pilot before March. I'd like to maximize credit in the bank if possible ... is there a solid strategy to use banked PB days for that? Conversely, is there a better strategy than parlaying the PB days into banked credit? TIA.

 

when I had PB days on reserve and no ability to bid a line I would just plop one in the middle of a 5 day reserve stretch rendering myself mostly unusable (unless I’m misremembering, I think that is allowed and what I used them for) if you have all black days though throughout the year they might just end up tagged on to your next years vacation though.

 

That is a good tactic but it is only allowed in narrowbody categories.

 

It also only works if you have positive coverage needed to drop.

A PB day used to drop a reserve day gets you ~4:30 per day. As was said in a NB category putting them in the middle of a 3 or 5 day reserve block is a very tactical use. Just remember that a TOFF day is a hard no fly day, so you cannot get a GS/IA or anything else on that day.

Unsued days earned this year fully convert to vacation days April 1 2025. Vacation days in the next vacation year will be with 4:35, so roughly the same value as a dropped reserve day.

In the end, I’d highly recommend using just picking a month to bid REG and burn them. NB categories can get 8-12 hours per PB day. WB categories kill it with 12-16+. If you don’t burn the days with a month as a REG then you just need to figure out when you want to utilize that time off. You can use it sporadically throughout reserve months tactically dropping days or use them in one big chunk when they convert to vacation and tag onto one of your awarded weeks next vacation year. Or some combination of the two depending on how many days you’ve got banked.

One last thought for people who like the thought not using banked days and letting them convert to vacation (SUPP days) to make for a longer vacation period - this is still a very inefficient use. You’d be better off burning the PB days for 9+ hours each. TOFF time is pay and credit and you can bank credit hours over 80, up to 20 in a bid period. Then you can buy vacation days for 4:35. So you can let one PB day convert to 1 SUPP day worth 4:35, or if you can burn that PB day for 9:10 and bank the time, that same single PB day then buys 2 SUPP vacation days for the next vacation year.

 

Letting them go to SUPP vacation isn't an awful idea. Especially for a first-year. Gives you some flexibility to burn them as IVD's at a higher pay rate.

 

Read the last part of my post above about how you can burn your PB days and get even more SUPP days…