Viral PTO hacks show which days to request off to best maximize your vacation days. Here’s how you could turn 15 PTO Days into 51 uninterrupted vacation days and other expert tips for maximizing PTO.
More than half of Americans don’t use up all of their allotted vacation days, according to a survey from Expedia. But for the other half who don’t want to leave any unused PTO on the table or who are determined to maximize their vacation days in 2025, it’s time to start strategizing which days to request off in the upcoming year.
The most common (and viral) PTO hack involves requesting days off around holidays to extend long weekends that are already built into the calendar. For example: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day falls on Monday, January 20th in 2025, so you could take off the Friday before and Tuesday after the federal holiday to enjoy five consecutive days off.
“Federal holidays and long weekends are your best friend here,” says Jesse Neugarten, CEO and Founder of Dollar Flight Club. “If you time it right, you can turn just 15 PTO days into over 50 days off in a year.”
Here’s more on how to get the most out of your paid time off in 2025, according to travel and human resources experts.
Maximize Your PTO: How To Take 51 Vacation Days in 2025
Booking vacations around long weekends will help you maximize your PTO so long as you don’t mind dealing with more expensive hotel stays and flights plus more crowds as others are also syncing up their travel with these days off.
Take an extra day before or after a holiday to stretch a 3-day weekend into 4, recommends Neugarten. For example, taking Thursday, July 3rd off this year will give you a four-day weekend because July 4th falls on a Friday. Holidays like Memorial Day, Labor Day, and Thanksgiving are consistently perfect opportunities to take an uninterrupted extended break, he says.
The end of the year is a great time to take time off, with December typically the easiest month to maximize time off, Neugarten says. Use PTO around Christmas and New Year’s to stretch two short weeks into one long leisurely vacation. This especially works if your company’s office shuts down for a winter break one of those weeks.
To make planning easy, group travel company Contiki has created a “Hack Your PTO” tool that allows travelers to plug in how many paid days off they have so that it can recommend days to take off in 2025 to get the most out of your PTO.
The travel company also created this calendar that provides ideas for how to extend your vacations in 2025 with existing holidays. Note: The Friday after Thanksgiving isn’t a federal holiday as noted, however many companies give this day off.
These PTO strategies come after Contiki’s annual Voice of a Generation Survey found that not having enough paid time off was a top barrier for 18-to-35 year olds from booking their next trip and that 56% of respondents would pass up a raise in exchange for more PTO.
What Does HR Think About PTO Hacking?
This year, hush trips received a lot of buzz as travelers started taking vacations without officially requesting it off. The trick here is to do enough work while traveling so not to alert your supervisor you were on vacation, a divisive tactic.
But could PTO hacking be the manager-approved strategy for taking more time off in 2025?
Using holiday hacks gives employees a chance to recharge throughout the year without exhausting their annual leave, making it a great way for some to really maximize their time off, says Carolyn Walker, Global HR Director at Tenth Revolution Group, a tech talent company.
However, it could be bad corporate etiquette to request off days bordering multiple holidays, especially if it blocks others from being able to take any long weekends throughout the year.
“Booking key dates all at once may exclude those staff members who might not have the same flexibility in their schedule,” Walker says.
If that’s the case then managers can always encourage team coordination so that peak times are shared equally, or even put limits on how many of those dates each person takes off, she says.
What Are Other Tips for Maximizing Your PTO?
Research has shown that taking vacation comes with benefits, including one small study that shows taking vacation can have cardiovascular benefits.
From a neuroscience perspective, our brains are wired for cycles of focused work and recovery, says Edel Holliday-Quinn, a psychologist and leadership expert with the Center for Leadership Psychology.
“PTO is a critical part of this rhythm, allowing individuals to return to work recharged and with greater cognitive clarity,” she says.
Here’s some expert tips for maximizing your PTO.
1. Leave wiggle room for flexibility. It may be tempting to request all of your PTO days in advance, but having some flexibility can reduce stress. “Life is unpredictable, and holding back a few PTO days for spontaneous needs—whether it’s a personal matter or an exciting last-minute opportunity—can help you feel in control,” Holliday-Quinn says.
2. Plan and schedule your time with as much advance notice as possible. This allows you to choose the dates and times that work best for you, says Laurie Cure, Ph.D., the CEO of Innovative Connections, an executive coach and HR expert.
3. Plan a health day where you schedule many of your physician and wellness appointments together to prevent needing to take additional time off here and there to squeeze these in, Cure recommends.
4. If travel is part of your job, plan your business trips strategically and add on vacation days or a long weekend when you are already at a destination. “This saves both money and time,” Cure says.
Of course, the final tip is to actually use your PTO each year.
By Brittany Anas from Forbes