December '09 Bid's Christmas tree

Early this morning I was in the COS crew lounge checking in and I realized that the bids closed this morning. Last night I had had just enough time to pack my bags for yet another trip and I didn't get a chance to go through my bid with a fine tooth comb. Either way, I feel confident with what I accomplished. I may not get Christmas off, but I won't have a carry-in over New Years Eve and I won't be awarded some junk 17 hour four-day trip.

Here's how my bid looks (pardon the cut and paste screenshots):

So, I did a few things that may become standard in the way I bid. The biggest thing is my use of the "try to finish at this layer" (TTFATL) feature. You'll see in my properties that I use TTFATL in my fifth layer along with the removal of my target line credit range and max credit de-selected. So I am trying to tell the software to built some sort of legal line for me before it goes to layer six. Layers six and seven have Christmas pairings on them. Layer six includes Christmas pairings that I would like to fly (if I have to) and layer 7 has the pairings I can live with flying. Also on layer seven I bid for the 25 off. This may cancel these pairing out but my understanding is that PBS will award pairings over days off, so by bidding this way I am hoping to have removed some pairings that I don't want without having to use the "remove pairing on date" feature.

I certainly bid more particular pairings than I have in the past. I dedicated the first four layers to pairings only. That may be a bit of a gamble for me, but after seeing my award for November I think I am senior enough to hold some of the longer pairings. I may not get them all, but all I need are a few.

Here's hoping we all get what we bid for!