this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2025
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The places to watch out for are the ones who have “unlimited” vacation time. That actually means “ooh, now’s really not a good time…”
I think there was a company (might have been Virgin?) that did unlimited holiday, but the issue was that people ended up feeling ashamed for taking holiday and so basically ended up taking less than if they were given 25 days holiday.
We have unlimited time off and they have started adding more company vacation days because they're worried we aren't taking enough time off.
Yep, exactly
My last contract had that and the first year I barely used 2 weeks. My regional manager started giving us heads up during contract negotiation time that we might not get it. Ended up taking 3 weeks that he approved and felt so good to actually use the benefits that were promised. He was going to retire soon anyways, so he was approving left and right.
Ended up get hired back at the same place under a different company, and now our PTO and vacation is horseshit
How is it "unlimited" if a manager has to approve? They might as well change the description from "unlimited vacation" to "anything from 0 to 365 days a year, whatever your boss (we) says flies."
It’s an excuse to limit how much vacation you can take and they don’t have to pay it out if you leave.
This is why my previous employer moved to "unlimited" vacation.
They originally had a PTO-with-rollover plan until one day the CTO went to the president and said, "I have enough vacation days banked to take off October 1 to December 31."
They removed the rollover first, but then everyone wanted the last two weeks of the year off. There was never "a good time" to use one's PTO in other parts of the year and nobody wanted to lose their vacation days. And of course management look like jerks if they "steal" everyone's time off.
Now, it's "unlimited" (pending management approval), so nobody is "losing" anything when management says no to those two weeks as well. You might get a couple of days here and there, but it's difficult to get a whole week and nearly impossible to get two consecutive weeks.
Just one of the many reasons why I no longer work there.
Three week vacations are not uncommon since we have set vacations days and people actually use them. The company actually thinks it’s a liability to have too much vacation banked and were offered a 2 for 3 deal during Covid.
I really hope you mean 'spend 2 days banked and get 3 off' and not the other way around........
Yes that’s what I meant. It might have been 3 for 4.
Its not and I learned that fast. At least I got to have some fun at the end
My company is pretty lax, where I live you're entitled to 20 days paid leave by law but a contractor in my team had unlimited leave and made good use of it, she would travel pretty frequently, but she would still meet all her deadlines so management were fine with it
I generally agree with you but my last two jobs transitioned to unlimited while I was there and the amount of time I took off was not impacted at either. Both of these jobs were client focused billable time types of jobs so I do think that has something to do with it, as long as I'm hitting my billable targets and contribution goals they don't care how much time I have off really. I once took December off at the end of a super busy year.
If you set a minimum vacation time, it's not bad. But most places don't do that, because they know you'll take less time if they say unlimited.