Air Tickets: Show Me The Money

Having mulled over the summer holiday options for some time now, I'm leaning more towards 'show me the money'.

We have an arrangement in our contract, as do most schools in China, that teachers are reimbursed for a return economy class airfare ticket every year. It's quite a nice deal, and most teachers use that to travel back to their home countries every summer. For the most part I do this as well, but not necessarily every year. In other words, gasp, some years I don't go back during summer and stay in Asia.

This year looks to be one of those. Having made up my mind to re-sign another contract (not resign, haha) I've now been looking at past, present and future holidays offered by the school and it's not looking too encouraging.

The longest was a 3 week winter break, which was maximized to the hilt in Thailand, but still, it was too rush-rush. Any other stat holidays during the school year involved or will involve the dreaded and illogical 'weekend working make up days'. This is an annoyance that anyone who has worked in China is familiar with and simply puts up with. For example, the April holiday goes like this:

Mon-Fri March 26-30
Sat March 31. Work. Piss off.
Sun April 1. Work. Piss off.

3 days holiday April 2, 3, 4

You've got to love Chinese logic. The math actually gives NEGATIVE days off for this, given the 7-days of working in a row before that. On the other hand, the short "week" of April 5 and 6 of working, then the next weekend (Easter weekend) of Apr 7 and 8 would make for a nice excuse to take Apr 5 and 6 off and make an extended break out of this.

It would then make for a good window of opportunity to do a trip to Canada, and I asked the school if they'd be on board with this. But so far, no response.

However, I'm honestly drawing a blank as to what I would actually do in Canada as there is no pressing need for a trip back there. Of course it would be nice to see friends and family, but they can also come to Shanghai and see me -- which they don't.

Even if I could draw up some reason to go back for a week in April, besides cheap air tickets, it would involve a rush trip around the Easter weekend with jet lag that doesn't sound appealing. The next window of opportunity would be the May break, with a similar schedule as the above.

Given all these short holidays throughout the school year, then summer break is the only really long break for traveling. But that's not possible if the trip is used to go back to one's home country, as is the tradition among teachers.

Put all this together, then "show me the money" makes the most sense. The school would be on board if I present a win-win situation. They give me cash that would cost them slightly less money to purchase an airline ticket, and so they make a profit. Will need to get cracking on this asap and start planning my summer trip, as there are smokin' airfare deals in Asia if booked right now.

Meanwhile, I've got another plan in the works to take days off for Christmas 2012. That would be a lot better of a choice, seeing as I haven't done so for nearly 7 years now. This plan will unfold as the year goes on.