While it might seem reasonable that you be allowed to bank your vacation days from year to year in order to take a longer vacation, many companies have policies that prevent you from doing so. Some of the reasons cited by employers for having such policies: it helps prevent employees from getting burned out if they take time off at regular intervals; it is a burden on other employees and impacts the functioning of the workplace to have employees take long vacations; and the employer wants to limit its financial exposure in the event an employee leaves the company and must be paid for accrued hours.
Some employees complain that the policy is in essence just a lose it policy since they are not allowed to take the hours off they are promised, or are engaged in such high-priority work that they cannot take time off without negatively affecting their projects and/or missing key deadlines. While this may seem unfair or may be a poor management practice, it is not against the law in all states, since employers are not legally compelled to grant vacation time at all. See the next questions below for strategies which may help you without resorting to legal action.
“Use it or lose it” policies are illegal in states where vacation time is considered to be compensation that must be cashed out when an employee quits or is fired from the company. To withhold vacation pay in these states is the same as failing to pay employees compensation that they have already earned. However, employers in these states may still set accrual caps, whereby employees may only accrue a set number of vacation days.