A number of our BAX trips start at out stations: IAH, LRD, SJC (paired with BDL), and PDX (paired with PHL). LAX starts and stops in TOL. We also have scheduled LAX reserve, plus scheduled reserve lines that could take place anywhere, usually TOL. Our lines are built around having 12 days off minimum, or, more correctly, 288 hours off during a 28 day (672 hour) bid period. Lets say you bid and are awarded an IAH line. Each outstation start line is built with 9 hours of "in position time", plus, the lines are planned with 8 hours of travel time on both the start and stop end of the sequence. So in this case, your first IAH trip departs Tuesday morning at 0230Z, and arrives for you to go home on Thursday morning at 1405Z. Back up from 0230 Tuesday by one hour for pre-flight, plus the mentioned 9 hours of "in position" time, plus 8 hours of travel, and you get 0830Z on Monday. On Thursday, you get .5 hours for post flight, plus 8 hours travel to get home, which comes to 2235Z. The time from 0830Z Monday to 2235Z on Thursday is your time "on". Add up all of your sequences and if they don't exceed 384 hours during the bid unit, then you have at least 288 hours off. The catch in figuring your actual time off comes in how you have to travel from where you live. TPA to IAH, I imagine you can get there one hop, so you can very likely meet the time off per the line's construction. If you live in or near IAH, you're golden. I can't get to IAH easily, so if I were to bid those lines, I'd be eating my time off by having to travel earlier and get home later. SJC and PDX starts/stops are the worst for those of us living on the east coast, since we have to travel on Sunday for Monday night's departure, and then travel all day (after having been up all night...) or wait for a red-eye to get home at the end of the trip. And, yes, nearly all of the flying is at night, with the sort in TOL running generally from about 2am after the inbound flights to 6am for the outbounds. Add in bad weather, de-icing, waiting for late arrivals, etc, only makes the day longer. It can be very tough on your body! But the best part is, you don't have to worry about begging a ride to and from work. And if your commercial flight inbound gets messed up such that you won't make it in time, you're not in jeopardy. Sorry for the long-winded explanation, but since you're in the pool, I figured you could use a bit more info!