The start of 2026 means many employees are seeing their PTO balances refreshed for the year. With some strategic planning, and travel know-how, you can make your vacation days go the extra mile.
One popular strategy, sometimes called “PTO-maxxing” on social media, involves tacking vacation days onto holidays and weekends to maximize your time off. By doing so, you can get around 40 days off by using just 10 to 15 days of PTO this year, some estimates say.
Of course, PTO-maxxing may not work within everyone’s schedules, team needs and employer policies. But every day you can place strategically adds up.
The U.S. has 11 federal holidays this year, several of which fall on Mondays. If you request off the Friday prior or the Tuesday after, you suddenly have a 4-day getaway using just one day of PTO. Likewise, for holidays that fall on Fridays, requesting the Thursday before or the Monday after creates a 4-day vacation.
The extra day can also save you some money if you’re planning on traveling.
“If you can build in one vacation day on a 3-day weekend, that gives you a little bit of an advantage because you’re not flying on the exact day when everybody else is flying,” says Tom Carpenter, co-owner of travel agency Huckleberry Travel.
For bigger holidays like Thanksgiving, where many people travel to be with family, you might request off Monday through Wednesday, and Friday if your employer does not already designate that a company holiday. With the two weekends on either side of Thanksgiving week, you’d have off 9 days for using 4 days of PTO.
And for those who travel frequently for work, consider adding PTO onto a business trip where possible, since your company has already covered your travel and you’re at that destination already, Carpenter says.
Travel tips
When maximizing your PTO, you’ll also want to bear in mind some tips to stretch your dollar too.
Pay attention to events happening where and when you’ll be traveling that could affect hotel and home rental availability, pricing and crowds. (If you’re not expressly going to the Winter Olympics, February might be a bad time to visit Milan.)
The best window to book a flight is 1.5 to 4 months out as any earlier doesn’t yield any real advantages, and any later will start to see prices increase, Carpenter says. As for flying, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays tend to be cheaper than other days, he adds.
For shorter getaways, look at direct flights from your airport so you can minimize your time in transit and spend more time on the ground at your destination.
Wherever you’re going, plan ahead.
“If you’re looking at a holiday weekend when a lot of people are going to be traveling, that inventory is going to go sooner than on a random midweek trip,” Carpenter says. “There’s no such thing as a last-minute deal.”
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