Entitlements? Who wants to know about those?! Everyone. So here they are:
DLA: aka Dislocation Allowance. You get this if you are going without your own household goods. It is meant to partially cover expenses incurred during your move. Chances are, you are eligible. How much do you get? Here are the DLA Rates (effective 01 January 2014).
TLE: aka Temporary Lodging Expense. You get this on your way out. You are entitled 10 days if you are moving CONUS to CONUS and 5 days if you are moving CONUS to OCONUS. Why is there a difference? I don't know. Although I don't have actual regulation to back this up, I don't believe you will get per diem (for meals) while you are in TLE because you are still receiving BAS aka Basic Allowance for Subtenance.
TLA: aka Temporary Lodging Allowance. This is only applicable if you are incoming to an OCONUS location. First, you are required to seek on base lodging. If you cannot, you have to get a letter of Non-Availability from the lodging facility you attempted to reserve. In this case, you can pick where you want to stay. Be sure to confirm that your stay of choice is an approved location. You can get TLA for up to 60 days. In our case, we are waiting for base housing. I am under the impression we will be waiting well over 60 days to get a house. So, what do we do? We find a place to live in the mean time. Speak with the housing office at your incoming location. They will be able to confirm for you that, as long as you REMAIN on the waiting list, the government will pay to move you BACK on base once you are offered a house. This is awesome news! Still a pain in the ass. But, in the military, what ISN'T a pain in the ass?
DITY Incentive: aka Do It Yourself (Personally Procured Move - PPM). You get an odd amount of money depending on how many pounds you are "doing yourself". The Travel Office will handle the details for the DITY move (NOT FINANCE)..it gets confusing..But, the travel office will be able to approve you for a certain amount of weight and will then give you the amount of your incentive pay. I don't know the exact estimate, but it comes out to about a little less than $1 per 1 lb.
A big issue we had...PER DIEM! Everyone loves per diem! I get WHAT? Plus WHAT? Plus WHAT? YES! As it turns out, we don't get that. Here is the problem. The DoD will only purchase you a plane ticket from your location to your destination. You don't get to choose the departing location. You CAN change your tickets, but it will cost about $36 per ticket to change. We changed our flight to depart from CA (rather than NC). So, we thought, HEY! We're En Route when we drive to CA! Its the right direction! Right? ..Right!?...RIGHT!??! ...Wrong. Apparently, since we are doing a DITY move, we are not eligible for Per Diem. Only Incentive Pay. It turned out to be about a $1000 difference (loss on our part). Damnit.
If you really want to get to the nitty-gritty check out the Joint Travel Regulations (I did, and although it was boring as all-get-out, it was worth it).
The GOOD NEWS? Hooray! I love good news! Doing the budget for our trip and comparing it to our expenses (Yes, I'm a nerd. I have an excel AND a powerpoint AND a custom google map) we actually come out on top. Quite a bit. So, I'm happy with it :)
Post regarding travel plans SOON!
And, HEY...share this with your military friends. This is all information that I wish I had so easily at my fingertips. A lot of times, the problem is that people just don't know where to look or who to ask...
Oh, ALSO! U-HAUL isn't as expensive as I though. For our weight requirement, it was a little over $300 for 9 days! woo hoo!
No comments:
Post a Comment