There's a number quietly sitting in your HR portal right now: the paid time off you've earned but haven't touched. And according to a Southwest Airlines-sponsored survey, you're in good company if you're ignoring it — three in four US workers with paid vacation days fail to use them all, based on a poll of 2,001 adults fielded in August 2026.
The catch is what happens to that balance on January 1. Company policies split three ways: some roll unused days into the new year, some cut you a payout, and some simply wipe the slate clean at the end of December. If yours is the third type, every day you don't book is money you earned and then watched evaporate. It's worth a two-minute check to find out which camp your employer falls into — before the holiday rush makes it too late to schedule anything.
Why do so many people leave time on the table? Not on purpose. Work just has a way of blurring together: one project rolls into the next, the Q4 push never really ends, and suddenly the holidays arrive and the balance resets with nothing spent. The piece makes a useful mental shift — treat PTO like a checking account rather than a perk. The money's already in there; the only step left is spending it.
And spending it doesn't require a grand tour. Two days tacked onto a weekend is enough for four nights in Charleston or San Antonio. Three days around a holiday gets you somewhere warm and back at your desk before anyone notices you're gone. Southwest is leaning into the message with its "Enter Airplane Mode" push: a burnout quiz at airplanemode.Southwest.com scores how run-down you are and suggests destinations flying out of your local airport. Combined with the airline's no change or cancellation fees (fare differences may apply, and basic fares have their own rules — cancel at least 10 minutes before departure to avoid forfeiting travel funds), booking now with flexible dates costs nothing if plans shift.
For anyone who travels, the takeaway is simple and time-sensitive: the calendar year is the deadline for a lot of these balances, and December is the worst month to try booking a trip at short notice. The math is friendly — a long weekend is cheap in PTO terms and does genuine work for your head. The real obstacle isn't cost or distance; it's filing the request. Check the balance, pick the dates, submit it. The reset button doesn't care whether you meant to use the time.
Who's this for? Pretty much anyone employed in the US with accrued days and a year-end policy — but especially the perpetually busy who keep deferring a trip until it's too late. That's most of us, apparently, all 75 percent.
