What Is the Best PTO Planner? I Tested 6 PTO Optimizers

The short answer

Ok, so I tested six PTO planners asking one question: how do I best use my 25 vacation days in 2027? TLDR: Longvacation.eu was the only planner that showed accurately every Barcelona holiday, on the other hand Vacation Tracker was the tool with the widest country list and calendar export.

I live in Barcelona, so public holidays in my city were my test. A PTO planner is only as good as its holiday data. If one date is wrong, you might build your whole trip around a day that is not free, and PTO optimization stops being a clever trick and becomes a mistake you pay for. Why then use the tool at the first place if the data are wrong?

How I tested these planners

I’m based in Barcelona, Spain, so I gave each planner the same test: plan my 25 vacation days for 2027 around the public holidays in Barcelona. Then I compared the results with the official source, the Ajuntament de Barcelona holiday calendar.

This was a spot check of selected dates. I looked closely at 17 May (Lunes de Pascua Granada) and 24 September (La Mercè), two local holidays that a Barcelona calendar should have. TripMemo has no Spain, so I tested England there instead.

Planners change, so these results reflect my tests in November 2026.

My four criteria

1. Accuracy of data. Are the public holidays correct? For me this is the most important feature of any PTO planner. If you don’t notice a mistake, you may book your vacations around it.
2. Holiday coverage. How many countries can you choose, and can you go down to a region/state or a city?
3. Fit for life. Can you adapt the tool to your real needs: company days, days you’ve already booked, your preferred vacation style?
4. Ease of use and output. Is it easy to read and use, even on smaller screens, and can you share the result or put it into your calendar?

1. Holiday Optimizer

I started with holiday-optimizer.com, which is one of the most popular PTO planners out there, because even Forbes mentions it one of its articles.

I like that the planner starts right on the landing page. You fill in your data and click generate. The first page looks crowded, but it’s relatively easy to follow. You can add extra days, such as company days or days when you are always off (useful if you work part-time), and choose your preferred style of vacations: longer weekends, several smaller vacations, or one extended vacation of 10 to 15 days.

The trouble started on the results page. The planner showed a public holiday on 3 May in Barcelona next year. I checked the official Barcelona calendar, and there is no such holiday in 2027. This is a big no for me. What if I hadn’t noticed it and had gone ahead to book my vacations? On top of that, the planner completely missed 17 May, a holiday in Barcelona. Ok, by this point I would have serious doubts about using it.

Also, the colours in the calendar have low contrast, so it’s hard to tell which day is a public holiday and which is a suggested PTO day.

You can share your results by link or email, which is great for planning with bigger groups. But when I tested it, three times, the link gave me a different combination of PTO days. You think you are sharing one result with your friends, but when they open the link, they see another one.

Country coverage is good: from Spain to Reunion, you can select almost any country. And as someone who works in IT, I notice smaller things, too. When you click the logo, it doesn’t take you back to the main page, so the navigation feels a bit chaotic.

Verdict: great coverage and options, but one false holiday and one missing holiday are a deal-breaker for me.

2. Vacation Maximizer

Next was vacation-maximizer.com. The first thing I like is the colours! The contrasting colours make the calendar and the suggested vacation combinations very easy to read, a huge plus (especially after Holiday Optimizer).

But again, the data! It missed 17 May, Lunes de Pascua Granada in Barcelona, and 24 September, La Mercè. Two mistakes are already enough for the final result to be shifted around other holidays wrongly.

Under the calendar you also find ready-made plans for a selection of countries. There was none for Barcelona, but there was one for Madrid, with combinations for 2028, 2029 and 2030. Given the low accuracy of the data, I would not use these pre-made plans blindly.

Country coverage is low: I counted only 22 countries, even though the most popular ones are there. There is also no option to share your plan.

Verdict: easy to read, but two missing holidays and a short country list.

3. TripMemo

TripMemo is mainly an app for capturing memories from your vacations in one online place, but it also has a holiday optimizer. It did not include Spain in the country list, so I tested England instead, and I also looked at Canada, which both TripMemo and Long Vacation offer. TripMemo has no option to select a specific territory in Canada (while it was added to Long Vacation recently!).

I entered 25 vacation days, but TripMemo used only 12?? Moreover, it put them mainly on Mondays, which is the easiest option.

The tool is easy to use, and the design is good and not overcrowded. But it is very limited: only 6 countries and a limited number of PTO combinations. The fit for use is also low, there is no adaptability.

There is a share button, but it shares the selected ranges as text, not a link to your calendar. Simple, but not really useful. Here is an example:

Book 1 day off: Mon 4 Jan Break: 1 Jan – 4 Jan 4 days away · New Year’s Day Book 1 day off: Mon 11 Jan Break: 9 Jan – 11 Jan 3 days away

Verdict: pleasant to use, but too limited for serious PTO optimization.

4. FixMyPTO

FixMyPTO has a good landing page, and I like the contrasting black-and-white design.

I went on with my Barcelona test. I can choose Spain and a region. I like the filter for the months when you want to have your vacations, and the choice of vacation type: shorter, longer or balanced. I hit generate, and the planner missed the local Barcelona holidays, for example 17 May. The day combinations look good overall, but without the local holidays I can’t fully trust the plan.

A huge plus: you can download your plan as an .ics file for your Outlook calendar or print it for free! On the other hand, there is no share button with a link. The number of countries is around 20+, which is good but relatively low.

Verdict: smart options and easy export, but no Barcelona holidays and no share link.

5. Vacation Tracker

The first thing I noticed on vacationtracker.io was the cookies. I couldn’t reject the additional cookies with one button. I had to go to “Customize cookies” and save my preferences there. That’s a big minus from the user’s point of view.

After a closer look, I found out this is paid software for companies, and I asked myself: where is the calendar? The free planner isn’t on the homepage, it lives at vacationtracker.io/tools/pto-planner.

The planner itself is great. Country coverage is huge, from Algeria to Zimbabwe. The design and usability are great, too. You can add company days and days you have already booked, which is a strong fit-for-life feature. But it also missed 17 May and 24 September 2027 for Barcelona.

The sharing options are good. I can download an .ics file for my Outlook, or share a link. The link shows the same results I generated before sharing, which is the correct behaviour.

Verdict: a solid planner, but the missing Barcelona holidays hold it back.

6. Long Vacation

Last was longvacation.eu. The design is good, with contrasting colours, and the planner is easy to use. Country coverage is relatively good: I counted 35 countries. There are many options to fine-tune your calendar. You can set a minimum number of days per range or monthly vacation-day caps, and you can add custom free days, such as company days or your birthday leave.

On accuracy, this is the first planner that captured 17 May and 24 September as holidays. It showed every Barcelona holiday I checked for 2027, so this is a planner I would trust.

You can share your calendar via a link, but there is no option to download an .ics file. On the other hand, it is the first planner where you can send feedback to the author. The cookies are transparent as well: there is a button to reject optional cookies right from the beginning. Huge like!

Verdict: the most accurate planner in my test, with great options, but it has fewer countries than the biggest tools and no calendar download yet.

What I learned from testing six PTO planners

Barcelona’s local holidays were the biggest gap: Holiday Optimizer, Vacation Maximizer, FixMyPTO and Vacation Tracker all missed 17 May. FixMyPTO only let me choose a region, not the city, so for that tool it’s a coverage limit and not a wrong date. For someone booking vacations the result is the same, though: a holiday the plan doesn’t know about.

• Big country lists don’t guarantee correct holidays. Holiday Optimizer and Vacation Tracker cover the most countries, but the most accurate planner for Barcelona was Long Vacation, with 35.
• Sharing is not equal. Holiday Optimizer’s link gave me a different plan every time I opened it, while Vacation Tracker’s link showed exactly what I had generated.
• Calendar export is rare. The two planners where I downloaded an .ics file were FixMyPTO and Vacation Tracker.
• Use all your days. TripMemo used only 12 of my 25 vacation days, and mostly on Mondays.

Summary: my findings by criteria

Tested in November 2026 with 25 vacation days in 2027, spot-checked against the official Barcelona calendar. TripMemo was tested with England and Canada.