AIRLINE PILOT CENTRAL

11man

Anyone have the info on bidding vacation in a single month? I seem to remember you have to bid a secondary and (not?) protect min days or or to protect.
??????

Nightflyer

A wise old Captain once told me you could put all of your days in January, and then bid VTO, and get paid for your entire year's vacation in January.

I don't remember anything about min days off.

busdriver12

I'm not sure why you'd have to protect (or not protect) min days off. If you put all your vacation in one month, if you have been at the company for awhile, you'd have all days off. I would think the min days off question is irrelevant, though I have never done it.

Why would anyone want to put their vacation all in one month? So you have one month off and fly the rest of the year? That doesn't sound appealing.

Nightflyer

He wanted to get his money at the beginning of the year, so he could invest it.

He figured he could bid around any days off he needed the rest of the year.

IIRC, he didn't have any kids, so didn't care much about time off.

PurpleToolBox

You put all of your vacation in one month during a month where you know the company will buy back vacation. You have to be senior for this to work.

One week of vacation buyback = 7 days X 6hours + 24hours = 66hours

66 X 4 = 264 hours

264 hours + 85 (average line) = 349 hours

349hours X $287/hour (WB CA) = $100,163

And when you are senior you get the weeks off you need anyways.

busdriver12

Don't know how that would work so well. You don't really know that they're going to buy back vacation in a particular month, since we bid for vacation so far out, except for Nov and Dec. Plus, you'd have to bid four separate weeks, as they won't give you the buyback bonus four times for one long vacation period, but for each individual vacation period that you sold back.

And good luck getting four separate vacation periods during the peak months, even if you're senior. You got one shot for December.

USN2FEDEX

I think you have to bid it in at least 2 segments (i.e. no more than 14 days) and you have to be able to hold both of them.

That is why people who do this typically pick early winter months (or they are very senior)

dckozak

This is bad advice, a couple ways. If your looking to maximize vacation buy back; spread your vacation around in blocks no bigger than 7 or 8 days. As posted earlier, pick months that historically the company buys back vacation. When bidding vacation slots, be sure not to bid weeks that carry over into the following month. When the solicitation from the company comes, jump on it right away. Not sure if its meaningful, but the company reserves the right to limit the number of volunteers it takes on any given month and it either "first come, first served" or its via seniority. Maybe someone else in the know will chime in on that.

If you want to take vacation and cover large amounts of time off (say 60 days or so), than bid weeks you can slide into the prior month or the month preceding your vacation. Lots of little rules in the CBA about how and what to do, but if your in a fleet, with single departures and can hold these lines and touch your (original or slid) vacation, you'll be golden to get big chunks of time off. Just make sure you bid vacation weeks early in the bid process that reflect when you want to do this (assuming timing is important) otherwise, plan well ahead.

Bidding all your vacation in a single block will give you a big pay day and may be meaningful for some with unique situations (like retirement) but otherwise seems too restrictive to me, but that only my opinion.

busdriver12

I'm 100% sure that vacation buy back is based upon seniority, and not who inputs it first.

PurpleToolBox

I'm not advocating anything. I am passing on a trick I was told by a CA who said he did it and it worked. That's what he told me. I didn't get to see his pay stub so who knows if it is true.