PBS software
 

Does anyone use one of the PBS services? Trying to figure out if is worth it.

I will forever promote BidNav. I think it's worth every penny.

I was told that once the new PBS interface goes live no one should need a separate service to bid for them.

We shall see (at some point).

The key to good bidding is seniority. Can't buy it

You are paying for laziness......what's that worth to you??

The guides explaining the software and processing logic aren't any more difficult than figuring out CCS+ (something we SHOULD NOT HAVE to do)....YES it will take a lot of time....but the coding aspect of it is not very difficult

THIS ...... all day.

It’s not laziness, it’s efficiency. I’d rather spend time with the family than sorting through PBS. That said I’m going to be reserve for a long time and currently spend about ten minutes bidding.

Most of the folks who use software use BidNav. I used it for a couple months with reasonable success but honestly looking at how experienced folks construct their lines and seeing what has and hasn't worked is equally good.

If you want to save $50/month when you're on first year pay your best bet is to find experienced bidders willing to share. You'd be amazed at how many folks love talking about how they bid and showing their standing bids to you when you're flying.

PBS threads always catch my attention. At DAL, everyone's bids are published in a report at the same time our schedules are posted. This is THE best way to learn how to bid. Find the schedule you like the most and go see how they bid. If you guys don't already have that, I'd say it's worth getting. PBS logic isn't all that hard to figure out and is a huge QOL piece, I can't imagine not learning it. But I understand some just can't/won't figure it out. I spend multiple coffee sessions trying to teach my neighbor how to bid. He finally gave up and hired a service. Looking at how they bid, it's extremely basic but get's him what he wants, so it's clearly worth his money.

And don’t forget to use the bidding resources that ALPA and the company already provide for no extra cost. The PBS support people are line pilots who have saved my bacon a few times by explaining why my BATs have failed and also given me small refinement strategies to tweak my bids; my results have improved quite a bit because of their input.

Given that we’re supposed to be seeing PBS 2.0 sometime this year (?) you might want to get used to using the resources that are already available. The support contact information is shown in the upper right hand corner of your bidding screen.

FWIW

Is that Navtech over there? Love NavTech! I think there would be less people needing to pay to have someone bid for them at United if we used NavTech....but possibly that's by design