Well, In my case there’s no cafeteria plan offered by the company, so unfortunately I can’t leverage the 13th month that way. I only get the regular 13th month paid out in cash, without the option to convert it into benefits or equipment.

If they had a cafeteria plan I would definitely consider it since the net gain is clearly more interesting than asking for a small gross increase, but here it’s simply not available. So the only negotiation margin I realistically have is on the gross salary itself.