September '10 Bid's Strategy in Bidding and Christmas Tree

So as you may have noticed, my bid wasn't as extravagant as in the past. Knowing that COS was a 'B' package month, I didn't believe that I'd be given much flying. That's one of the reasons that I wanted to keep the carry-in pairing I was awarded in August. Normally a carry-in pairing will hurt your bid but in this case it helped. When the domicile is stretched so thin any little addition to your schedule (training or carry-ins).

I also did a couple things that I usually don't do. I bid to "avoid landing at city" YQT.  In the COS bid package there were about 20 trips with a 30+ hour YQT overnight. Most of those fell on Saturday. I'm sure YQT is nice and I'm sure that those flying that trip will not be disappointed but Saturdays in September-December are holy to me. That's right.

NCAA Football season is a few weeks away! These YQT trips weren't efficient and left me in another country when it came time to watch the pigskin fly. Now, I could have bid to avoid specific pairings which I did in the June Bid Strategy post, but like I mentioned in the July Bid Strategy, sometimes it is just easier to avoid the specific city rather than bid avoid some 20 specific pairings.