How to Maximize Your Paid Time Off by Planning Around Public Holidays

One of the best strategies for getting the most out of your vacation balance is to strategically stack your PTO days alongside national or company holidays. By doing this, you can significantly extend your continuous time away from work while only spending a fraction of your actual accrued hours.

The "Holiday Bridge" Strategy

Look at your calendar at the beginning of the year and identify holidays that fall on a Tuesday or Thursday. For example, if Independence Day falls on a Thursday, taking Friday off requires only one PTO day but rewards you with a four-day weekend. This is often referred to as "bridging" the holiday. If a holiday falls on a Wednesday, taking Thursday and Friday off costs two days of PTO but yields a five-day break.

Combining Weekends and Federal Holidays

For longer trips, look for holidays that fall on a Monday, such as Memorial Day or Labor Day. If you schedule your vacation for the Tuesday through Friday following a Monday holiday, you use four days of PTO but get a continuous nine days off (including the preceding and following weekends). This is incredibly efficient for international travel or longer road trips where you need more time to decompress.

Using Floating Holidays Wisely

If your company offers "Floating Holidays" in addition to standard PTO, these are incredibly valuable. Floating holidays are essentially additional paid days off that can be used at your discretion, but they rarely carry over to the next year.

In the PTO Calculator, you can turn on Use Floating Days First in the advanced settings to model plans where floating days are consumed before PTO hours. That is especially useful if your floating days expire sooner or should be reserved as the first layer of coverage for a trip.

If you don't use your floating holidays by December 31st, they are almost always lost. Pair them with a federal holiday bridge and you might easily create a 5-day weekend without ever dipping into your standard PTO bank!