Bushmaster09

That’s exactly what I just did because I screwed up my bid so badly. UPS has this antiquated bid system from the 1980s that makes it very easy to screw up. Course the old guys here don’t know any better and think it’s fine.

BoilerUP

Don’t blame the “old guys here” for the company’s antiquated IT.

Plenty of people have failed bidding for various reasons, but with not one but two different versions of Snapshot it should be easy enough to see what you bid and what you can hold and accordingly if what you entered isn’t actually what you wanted.

That said, how would you make it “better”?

HappyTrails

I think it’s as simple as it gets. You like Line 1, you type 1, save, done, and so forth. I think many bid based on what other people are bidding instead of simply bidding based on your own preferences, rely too much on the Snapshot. I rank my lines in order of highest preferences and the chips will fall how they will. Easy. That way I don’t have to worry about the people above changing their bids.

flyguy23

I can understand forgetting to bid, but how do you screw it up badly and then blame someone else? It's a very straight forward process even though its 1990s technology. See a line you want, bid it. The system isnt forcing you to bid lines you dont want. I've screwed my bid up a few times, but it was 100% my fault. I just really hope this isnt a call for PBS. Most here have no idea how much power that gives the company to screw with us.

HappyTrails

Thank goodness I haven’t talked to a single person that would like to see PBS. Everyone knows PBS in the hands of the company would be disastrous.

Bushmaster09

I did not bid enough lines to cover my position for VTO and of course the ones I bid all went senior to me the last few minutes and I got the last one nobody wanted.
There is no clear place to find what position your bidding VTO, other than assuming everyone bid it in order. In my case I didn’t look hard enough and missed another set of VTO lines in the initial packet. Yes I screwed up but also I’ve worked at other airlines with a MUCH simpler bidding system with many sort options. All the information is right there when you log in and perfecting your sort is an art. Here with bidpro you get a crappy program with few sort options and on my computer it literally takes 10 seconds to update when I try to sort. I found it useless and stopped using it the first go around.

And entering numbers into a box one by one? Really?! That’s not a good method. And relying on snapshot to catch your mistakes may or may not work when people change things at last minute. There are much better ways to do this guys! Please don’t take this as I’m unhappy here, it’s easily the best airline I’ve worked at. The bidding system just needs help. A lot of it!

BoilerUP

*Always* block bid *all* VTOs and *all* VTOR if you want/need to.

Download BidPro on your EFK if only to use as a viewer.

“Old” Snapshot works better and provides more useful info than “New” Snapshot IMO, but the interface is more crude. Either will tell you if you have insufficient bids.

Your points are valid, but UPS is where “better way” goes to die at the altar of institutional momentum and “because reasons”.

Bushmaster09

Thanks for the advice and I think your right about better ways just aren’t accepted here. UPS is like a very old man completely stuck in his old outdated methods as ridiculous as they might be. Makes me quite nervous about the future of the company once their duopoly with fedex starts to crumble.

Night_Hawk

this is not correct. If you dropped the trip via the trip board you would be paid 65. you lose the 10 hour buffer if you drop more than 50% of your initial credit time.

Swedish Blender

If you look at Bid Summary in CMS, it will list everyone that has a put bid in for published VTOs. That should help give you an idea where you stand. It will also list those that bid single PP VTOs.

Does the same for training bids.