The Payback Day Massacre

[Maurus]

Can you explain washing trips more?


If I have a trip, I drop it, I lose pay. My friend picks it up. Then gives it to me? What’s the pay advantage to all this?

Lets say you are flying the A350 and you have a 3 day trip to ICN out of ATL. You can apply a single payback day to day 1 and the entire trip will drop with pay protection for day 1 but not the entire trip. Since the first block period is ~14 hours you get 14 hours of pay for the drop at the cost of only 1 PB day.

Trips only drop if coverage allows it or if someone was willing to take it as a straight pickup. That is where a friend comes in. They pick up the trip for you and then trade the trip back to you. At that point you drop another PB on the trip. Rinse and repeat until you have used up all your PB days.

If you saved up 10 PB days you would get paid for 140 hours in the above scenario and you only need to sit on your tush and buy your buddy some beer.

Payback days were gained when you pick up premium flying in the form of a greenslip as a reserve. PB days are automatically applied to your next reserve period but if none remain in the bid period they put it in a bank instead and the pilot could choose when/how to use them.

 

[///AMG]

Can you imagine the outrage if something like this happened at another airline with a SEA base? And yet, this discussion is a normal discussion and nobody is being called a *name*

 

[bp]

soooo trying to reset the status quo before contract openers

 

[JDean3204]

Can you imagine the outrage if something like this happened at another airline with a SEA base? And yet, this discussion is a normal discussion and nobody is being called a *name*

Seems more like a useful forum and less Reddit for sure

 

[Apophis]

soooo trying to reset the status quo before contract openers

They company has always hated payback days, they’re attempting to limit their utility in the hope we’ll give them away in this upcoming contract.

Hope it blows up in management’s face.

 

[nc1982]

Just to give you guys an example, a few years ago a NYC 767-400 FO amassed about 50 PB days. He washed it all in one month and credited 999 hours. At 767 pay. You do the math. I didn’t believe it until the time card was posted.

 

[Maurus]

Just to give you guys an example, a few years ago a NYC 767-400 FO amassed about 50 PB days. He washed it all in one month and credited 999 hours. At 767 pay. You do the math. I didn’t believe it until the time card was posted.

Yeah I saw that. I still think it could be faked. It is extremely easy to fake websites. You can literally go into the code on your browser and make the edits as necessary. No need for Photoshop.

 

[nc1982]

Yeah I saw that. I still think it could be faked. It is extremely easy to fake websites. You can literally go into the code on your browser and make the edits as necessary. No need for Photoshop.

Yea I guess it could be photoshopped. I hear a lot of guys made over a million last year doing the PB game.

 

[Cherokee_Cruiser]

Lets say you are flying the A350 and you have a 3 day trip to ICN out of ATL. You can apply a single payback day to day 1 and the entire trip will drop with pay protection for day 1 but not the entire trip. Since the first block period is ~14 hours you get 14 hours of pay for the drop at the cost of only 1 PB day.

Trips only drop if coverage allows it or if someone was willing to take it as a straight pickup. That is where a friend comes in. They pick up the trip for you and then trade the trip back to you. At that point you drop another PB on the trip. Rinse and repeat until you have used up all your PB days.

If you saved up 10 PB days you would get paid for 140 hours in the above scenario and you only need to sit on your tush and buy your buddy some beer.

Payback days were gained when you pick up premium flying in the form of a greenslip as a reserve. PB days are automatically applied to your next reserve period but if none remain in the bid period they put it in a bank instead and the pilot could choose when/how to use them.

Just to give you guys an example, a few years ago a NYC 767-400 FO amassed about 50 PB days. He washed it all in one month and credited 999 hours. At 767 pay. You do the math. I didn’t believe it until the time card was posted.

Appreciate the explanation. So it sounds like after using a PB day, you can still pick the same trip back on the same day footprint, and use PB day on day 2, and then repeat for day 3.

New question, say as that 767-400 Fao out of NYC. I assume mostly 3-day trips one leg to/from Europe. Say he bids aggressively and gets six 3-day trips, 18 days of work and 11 days off.

Using the buddy and wash method, he can use PB days and wash his entire schedule. Assuming 10 hrs to Europe and 12 hrs back, 22 times 6 is 132 credit.

How do you get 999?

Is this because you can drop multiple PB on the same day and keep rinse/repeat? Because if so, then definitely see a case where you could pump and dump the entire month with multiple trips on the same days.

 

[tlove482]

Lets say you are flying the A350 and you have a 3 day trip to ICN out of ATL. You can apply a single payback day to day 1 and the entire trip will drop with pay protection for day 1 but not the entire trip. Since the first block period is ~14 hours you get 14 hours of pay for the drop at the cost of only 1 PB day.

Trips only drop if coverage allows it or if someone was willing to take it as a straight pickup. That is where a friend comes in. They pick up the trip for you and then trade the trip back to you. At that point you drop another PB on the trip. Rinse and repeat until you have used up all your PB days.

If you saved up 10 PB days you would get paid for 140 hours in the above scenario and you only need to sit on your tush and buy your buddy some beer.

Payback days were gained when you pick up premium flying in the form of a greenslip as a reserve. PB days are automatically applied to your next reserve period but if none remain in the bid period they put it in a bank instead and the pilot could choose when/how to use them.

It sounds awesome for the pilots but also like you're abusing the system. You can't really blame the company for trying to close loopholes like that.

 

[Roger Roger]

Seems like another easy way would be to cut reserve coverage so reserves actually work on their reserve days. That’s the Eskimo strategy, 9% reserve baby

 

[bp]

It sounds awesome for the pilots but also like you're abusing the system. You can't really blame the company for trying to close loopholes like that.

if the company hates it they can buy it from the pilot group in the next contract cycle

 

[Maurus]

Appreciate the explanation. So it sounds like after using a PB day, you can still pick the same trip back on the same day footprint, and use PB day on day 2, and then repeat for day 3.

You can apply the PB day to the exact same day of the trip every single time. It is far easier than you think.

It sounds awesome for the pilots but also like you're abusing the system. You can't really blame the company for trying to close loopholes like that.

Getting PB days that you can bank are sorta harder these days. The crazy stuff was occurring when we were very understaffed after covid. You also end up not having much of a life. The types that go crazy with this stuff have like 6-8 days off a month. I don't see a point in having a ton of money if you are just going to be working all the time and wasting your younger years to do it.