You get 10 days off per month (actually 120 days off per year). You also get 2 commuting days each month, plus 24 days of vacation per year.
Some people will take 10 + 2 + 2 each month. Others will take 10 + 2 and save the vacation to be used in bigger blocks. It's all really up to you and it is the best bit of working for AJX. If they mucked around with the days off system then many would be looking elsewhere.
You can back-to-back months so, for instance, take the last 14 days of one month and the first 14 of the next. You'll then find yourself in Japan for a long time until the next lot of days off come around but at least you're able to do such a thing.
If you wanted to use, say, 4 days at the end of one month and 10 into the next, then that's fine. As you can see, it's very flexible and works 99% of the time.
Basically, you put in your days off request before the end of month, 2 months ahead (if you see what I mean). So February's days off request needs to be submitted by the end of December. On the 4th of each month AJX draw a line under the work moved around with ANA and they then start writing the rosters.....manually!! Occasionally they may run out of pilots and they might call you before 4th and ask you to move your days off. If you're able then it's a good thing to help out and do so. If you can't then they usually understand and move to the next pilot.
Vacation can be 'forward used'. By that I mean you don't have to accrue the 2 days each month before you can spend it. The leave year starts 1 Apr and if you 'spent' 12 days of vacation in Apr (plus your normal days off etc) then you just don't have the ability to add 2 vacation days to each month for the rest of the year.
The commuting days were put in place to attempt to protect your actual days off at home as days off i.e. not flying to or from Japan. The schedulers try, to a greater or lesser extent, to finish people early (ish) on their last day of work and, occasionally, start them late on their first day of work. Clearly this cannot work for everybody, especially if you take you days off along with others at popular times (month's end/start). If you do finish early then you can get going home on the last day of work and may only eat a bit into your commuting day. Same as the late start but you do have to be in Japan a minimum of 9 hours before report, so you can rest before a trip and this normally means being in a lot earlier than that.
We've been lucky enough to have this system for quite some time but it is starting to creak a bit at the seams, now we have many more pilots than previously. You might think that would give them more flexibility but their response is that they get more requests and, therefore, it is more difficult to keep everyone happy. The BIG problem is those who, as happens everywhere, spoil it for everyone by being selfish idiots and doing stupid things. Some have come back on ZED tickets (who are not 'tracked' by AJX) and arrived way too late before a trip. Others have gone home on ZED tickets when they're still on standby, 'because they can't use me'. Those sort of things that will eventually lead to the Company treating everybody as only the idiots should be treated and that will ruin the, currently excellent, system. If you use C class then the Company can see when you're coming and going and if it's not right then they'll tell you to change your ticket request.
I should also say that you can break your days off into shorter stints as well. Obviously, those that live in Japan might break them up into 4 blocks of 3.....just as an example.....whereas someone who lives in Hong Kong (made-up person) might want to have 2 blocks of 6. HKG being close and relatively easy to commute. The contract does talk of concurrent days but, as I said, they have been much more flexible than that and long may that continue.
Christmas, like every other company in the world, is a bit different and we have a system that is designed to allow a fair share of time off, based on what you've done the previous 3 years. I'm not going to complicate things by attempting to describe the whole thing but it's fair and you can see where you lie in the big scheme of things, so you can plan ahead. Just don't expect every Christmas off because it's not going to happen!
I think that's enough writing :-)