How It Works

PTO Optimizer uses a smart algorithm to find the optimal days to take off, maximizing your total vacation time by strategically bridging weekends and holidays.

The Strategy

The key insight is simple: by taking off just a few strategic days, you can turn short weekends into extended vacations. For example:

Example: Thanksgiving Week (US)

  • Take off Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday (3 PTO days)
  • Thursday & Friday are holidays
  • Saturday & Sunday are weekend
  • Result: 9 days off using only 3 PTO days!

The Algorithm

Our optimizer scans your entire year and identifies "bridge opportunities" - gaps between free days (weekends and holidays) that can be efficiently filled with PTO.

  1. Maps all weekends and public holidays for your selected country and year
  2. Identifies gaps between free day clusters that are 1-5 days
  3. Calculates the "efficiency" of each opportunity (total days off / PTO used)
  4. Selects the highest-efficiency opportunities that fit your PTO budget
  5. Returns non-overlapping vacation periods optimized for maximum time off

Supported Countries

We currently support public holidays for:

🇺🇸 United States
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
🇩🇪 Germany
🇨🇦 Canada
🇦🇺 Australia
🇫🇷 France

Privacy

All calculations happen in your browser. We don't collect, store, or transmit any of your data. There are no accounts, no cookies, no tracking. Just a simple tool that helps you plan better vacations.

Open Source

PTO Optimizer is completely free and open source under the MIT license. You can:

  • View the source code on GitHub
  • Self-host your own instance
  • Contribute improvements
  • Fork it for your own projects
View on GitHub

Questions?

Found a bug? Want to request a feature? Have a question? Open an issue on GitHub and we'll help you out.