Maintaining a minimum monthly credit?
 

Right now at my regional I have the ability to let other pilots pick up my trips, and reduce my credit for that month as low as I want. I just have to pay health care out-of-pocket if I go below ~50 credit hours.

The ability to drop/post trips down to 0 hours credit (in theory at least...) is really valuable to me for some months when I would like extended/uninterrupted time off.

At the majors, does this similar ability exist across the board? Or does it vary by the airline, where some require you always maintain a given minimum credit (and if so, which ones allow)?

It varies by airline. I know at least a few have hard mins which you cannot go below.

United recently put into place a 50 hour floor of flying/non flying credit. It has really had a negative impact on trading/dropping trips. A lot of pilots, myself included would drop down to 30ish hours and then as the month goes on pick up/trade into trips that worked better for whatever reasons, be it more productive trips, better report/release, etc.

This is good to know - bummer to hear that. I like that same strategy as well. Thanks for the info.

How could this be "put into place" without a contract amendment/LOA?

At UPS, you cannot simply drop trips into Open Time, but you can drop down to 37.5 credit hours per eight-week bid period ONLY by giving away trips to other pilots via Trip Board.

Shorter and "easier" trips trips are MUCH more likely to be 'picked up', with 5+ day trips pretty much impossible to give away.

We can drop down to 0 at Delta without consequence from the company. Still have to cover our part of the benies, though.

That minimum (50 hrs) has been around for a very long time - going back to at least C2003 IIRC. In the current contract, C2013, you'll find it listed in 20-P-1-h. The reason why you haven't seen it enforced until recently is because in the left column next to 20-P, it states: Full Implementation TBD by the JIT. Looks like they've now implemented the section below.
You could probably drop below 50 hrs with scheduling or Chief Pilot office coordination.

20-P-1-h Without Company concurrence, a schedule modification request shall be denied if
it causes the sum of the Lineholder’s Flying Hours and Nonflying Hours, as defined in
Section 5-B-2-b, to be below fifty (50) hours.

AA is zero.
I've done it more than once. I think there is/was some stipulation about maintaining at least 50% of some number for the following month, but never have heard any complaints. Not that there are any, but I doubt a guy who could pull it off would get much sympathy.

Easy to do if you have turns/2 days during the week. More than a few times I've reached the 10th of the month with zero hours, but being infected with a few DNA strands of some German work ethic, I end up filling up the month. Personally, a month living in van down by the river would work for me. Sucks being married and being told to go to work.:D

What's the process to do that at AA? Post your trips in open-time and hope someone picks them up? Only for line-holders or can reserve days be posted as well?