My last office job had unlimited vacation and I never used it (not did most of my coworkers) and at the end of the year you neither had the days taken off nor had you accrued any credit for I taken time.
At the job before that I had accrued 6 weeks of PTO, which was the max. I took every other Friday off after that and was paid out a month and a half when I left the company. Everyone understood the situation, so it wasn’t looked down upon when I was gone every other week.
My perspective was that unlimited PTO was a scam to reduce vacation time. Most people are not going to take advantage of it, so the company benefits.
In addition to not having to pay out at the end of employment, they also do the "unlimited vacation" thing to reduce the liability of unpaid PTO on the books. When our revenue was hit hard in the early days of covid, the company I work for asked everyone to take a week of their PTO to help the financials look better.
At the job before that I had accrued 6 weeks of PTO, which was the max. I took every other Friday off after that and was paid out a month and a half when I left the company. Everyone understood the situation, so it wasn’t looked down upon when I was gone every other week.
My perspective was that unlimited PTO was a scam to reduce vacation time. Most people are not going to take advantage of it, so the company benefits.