It's perfectly normal for companies to deny leave requests, especially smaller ones. One common reason is simply boots on the ground, can't have everyone take

It's perfectly normal for companies to deny leave requests, especially smaller ones. One common reason is simply boots on the ground, can't have everyone take the same day off. Deadlines, if I ask for leave in the last week before a deadline. You might be thinking from a programming perspective but imagine your whole support team taking the same two weeks off. There are loads of reasonable, practical, reasons to deny leave. Every company policy in the UK will usually clearly state don't book tickets, etc. until approval. Vaguely related, here in the UK there are people who get a bad rep for being greedy by blocking off certain holiday before other people as soon as the year gets 'released' e.g. booking every Friday before a bank holiday Monday off, so no-one else can. Good managers will shut down that behaviour and tell them they can only take X of them, as it causes resentments.