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It's a way for companies to eliminate their vacation payout when you're fired. If you have a defined vacation policy, then by law the company is obligated to pay you out for the unused vacation days in case of termination/resignation. But in the case of an "unlimited" policy, there's no such obligation. Great for the company. Not so great for the employee.

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This is the truth in my case. Having quit my last job yielded in a huge payout (5 figures). I do understand that this was basically the salary for the time off that I didn’t take. I still took decent amount of vacations but over time with PTO rollovers the balance built up to a significant amount.

In the end, it was a very nice bonus though.

But weren’t you entitled to this?

Not if you're working for a company that has an "unlimited vacation" policy.

> If you have a defined vacation policy, then by law the company is obligated to pay you out for the unused vacation days in case of termination/resignation

I think this is only the case if vacation is accrued. If it's a single yearly lump, it doesn't appear they have that obligation (at least, not in NYC)

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