Most pilots that are willing to take any premium trip will submit multiple smart pickup requests with varying criteria (days, Airport, etc) so they don’t miss out… so when the scheduler changes a 75 to 100% as soon as they hit enter it’s assigned to the smart pickup pilot who is most senior. If you wait for a notification to be sent to you by text then you are losing out. Senior pilots who wait for 100% to drop will sometimes get edged out by a more junior pilot who would accept at 75% who would have otherwise lost out.

 

II don't mind receiving trade requests, and when I do decline I try to do so quickly and sometimes with the courtesy of an explanation. What I do take offense at is being lied to about the motives of the other pilot. For example, a few months ago I received a request out of the blue from a senior WB FO who I happened to know gets bought off a couple of times a month. He pleaded with me to trade him my unadvertised and otherwise crappy EWR turn (with an LCA) because he 'needed to get back into base earlier' than his existing HI trip. Of course, there were other trips similar to mine actually advertised on the trade boards that would get him home early as well. He only had a trade out for a single one of them... the other one with an LCA. Not the first time someone has tried this sort of Scabesque thing with me. I have the screenshots saved in case I see it enough from him to send it to Pro Stans. Make you nervous?

I guess you skipped right over the part where I mentioned helping new hires avoid being taken advantage of. Hours and hours spent explaining things to dozens of them so far. I'm even going to leave a nice tip for you and everyone here... make sure you know who the LCAs are in your base/fleet (they are posted on a wall in my base at least).