4 on 4 off'ers..

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS THE UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
1

Any nifty tricks to maximise your time off when booking holidays?

For example if you do the standard mon-fri you can always try to plan them around bank hols to get more bang for your buck.

I know that booking 4 days off bags you 12 consecutive days But any other tricks I’ve not thought of? Is it better if I was booking 6 days off for example, to book them for halfway through my on shift days ? I still can’t get me little Brain fully around the logistics of 4o4o.

Because 206 days off In a year isn’t quite enough…

2

Do you work BH if its on rota? Apart from Christmas obvs (unless collecting cow juice)

3

Alfa1M:
Any nifty tricks to maximise your time off when booking holidays?

For example if you do the standard mon-fri …

That’s not 4o4o

4

stu675:

Alfa1M:
Any nifty tricks to maximise your time off when booking holidays?

For example if you do the standard mon-fri …

That’s not 4o4o

Read the rest of the sentence. He’s presenting it as a tip for extending time away from work using Mon - Fri pattern as an example of what many people do, thus looking for examples similar which WOULD apply to a 4/4 pattern.

5

toonsy:
Do you work BH if its on rota? Apart from Christmas obvs (unless collecting cow juice)

Yes I work bank hol as and when it falls,

I just can’t grasp my head around best timing for holidays,

For example if I wanted 3 weeks off is there a better or worse time to book i.e start of the four off or at the end , I’m probably overthinking and it would require the same no. days booking off regardless

Yes the mon-fri exame was just trying to explain what generallyi was trying to achieve by asking , it can be bloody complicated this shift pattern for those that do it let alone those that don’t!

6

Remember that if you take 4 days off, you get 12, but if you take a other 4 straight after, that only gets you 8 days, because the 4 inbetween only count once. If that makes sense.

7

the nodding donkey:
Remember that if you take 4 days off, you get 12, but if you take a other 4 straight after, that only gets you 8 days, because the 4 inbetween only count once. If that makes sense.

.yes it does now you mention it thanks and the sort of info I was after, so in practice you would be better off booking four off, having your 12 days off, then working 4 and then booking another 4 days off giving you 24 days/ off at the cost of 8 holidays.

Working 4 days in 28 sounds like a steady enough plan going forward

8

I really enjoy weekends off, especially Saturday nights. So I tend not to book 4 days in a row, but do lots of 2 day bookings (I get a bit more than 20 days per year, so can book 2 days off each month). I use them at weekends, so I only work about 15 Saturday nights in a whole year.

Another thing I have done, is booked the last two of a shift cycle off (Sat & Sun), and the first two of the next shift cycle (Fri & Sat), giving me 8 consecutive days off, covering weekends too. This means I did 4 off, 2 on, 8 off, 2 on, 4 off. To me that always felt like a bit of a cheat, as if I somehow extended my holiday, because it was a 20 day period with a few odd shifts in it, having only used 4 days holiday.

9

ezydriver:
I really enjoy weekends off, especially Saturday nights. So I tend not to book 4 days in a row, but do lots of 2 day bookings (I get a bit more than 20 days per year, so can book 2 days off each month). I use them at weekends, so I only work about 15 Saturday nights in a whole year.

Another thing I have done, is booked the last two of a shift cycle off (Sat & Sun), and the first two of the next shift cycle (Fri & Sat), giving me 8 consecutive days off, covering weekends too. This means I did 4 off, 2 on, 8 off, 2 on, 4 off. To me that always felt like a bit of a cheat, as if I somehow extended my holiday, because it was a 20 day period with a few odd shifts in it, having only used 4 days holiday.

Great tips thanks…
However I actually prefer it falling on a weekend now. Not as many places open limits reload possibilities and an earlier finish , with 12 hours guaranteed in the bank.

Having a non existent social life also helps :wink:

10

Alfa1M:

the nodding donkey:
Remember that if you take 4 days off, you get 12, but if you take a other 4 straight after, that only gets you 8 days, because the 4 inbetween only count once. If that makes sense.

.yes it does now you mention it thanks and the sort of info I was after, so in practice you would be better off booking four off, having your 12 days off, then working 4 and then booking another 4 days off giving you 24 days/ off at the cost of 8 holidays.

Working 4 days in 28 sounds like a steady enough plan going forward

You seem to have grasped the point of 4on-4off already … :grimacing:

11

When I worked 4 on 4 off you were best taking it off when the weekends were about to maximise weekends off.

12

If you work a normal Mon-Fri job… here’s how to hack your holidays in 2023 and get 47 days off!

Be quick to book these days, before your mates beat you to it! - Enjoy! :smiley:

13

If the firm is reluctant to let you book odd days holiday, then they will contrive to not let you have any to start with, eg. by giving you five or six whole weeks holiday - which has to be booked in “whole weeks” leaving no odd days.

So the trick then - is to take a week off on a bank holiday week, but to work the bank holiday itself on it’s own.
That way, you get the bank holiday credit which, in these days where firms are reluctant to pay double bubble anymore - turns into an odd day you can book whenever they’ll let you book it, the usual restrictions being that you cannot use such an odd day to take another bank holiday off!

…Then “Friday Nights” in particular, then “Monday Mornings” on non-bank holiday weeks, then finallly all the other days, which one would not expect there to be any restrictions in taking odd days on.

Thus, if you have a 4 day week that consists of UNEVEN shifts - you get to take the LONG shift off, which then not only gets you out of say, 13 hours but gives you “13 banked hours” towards your overtime aggregate you may have…

I’ve made it a personal point over all these years to work as many bank holidays as I can - so I always have the ability to take an odd day off at the drop of a hat… I was also careful not to bank-up 5 such days off - lest I be forced to take an entire week off in say, February or November.

Spreading the odd days off all around the year - usually kept me just ahead in the “banked hours aggregate” system so I could also pick up any plumb overtime I wanted as well, such as Boxing Day, New Year’s Day, and the two “Eves” which were often “half days” (job ‘n’ knock) but being paid for a full shift…

I’ve never been compelled once into working Christmas Day over the years, nor doing a night out on Fridays, and only got caught out the first time into being forced to take a week off in february, because I was banking up holidays, discouraged from doing of of course…