Military Travel Tips
Since I travel a lot as a result of my military duties, I thought I’d take a few moments to help my fellow Soldiers that also travel on official orders. I’ve learned many of these tips through personal trial and error. I am also a trained and certified Defense Travel Authority. Hopefully, they will help someone in their upcoming travel.
#1 – Keep a TDY folder for each trip. Inside the folder, you should keep your orders, your travel itinerary, any OPORDs related to the trip, and all your receipts. This will make your settlement so much easier when your trip is over. Also, get a small business card folder where you can keep all your membership cards (see tip #7).
#2 – Make sure that your orders are finalized. It’s important to ensure that you are able to review your orders PRIOR TO any travel. That way you know what your per diem is, maximum hotel rates if staying on the economy, and whether or not you are authorized a rental car or other forms of transportation. If you travel without finalized orders and haven’t received a VOCO (vocal order), you run the risk of not getting reimbursed for certain expenses incurred during your trip. Also, you’ll need these orders if the airline tries to charge you for checking a bag. Most airlines do not charge active duty troops traveling on orders. Also ensure that your authorization request is submitted well in advance of your travel, preferably as soon as you know you have to travel.
#3 – Check to ensure that your government travel card is active and working. It’s a terrible feeling when you go buy dinner or pay for gas for your rental and your card is declined. You can do this by visiting a local gas station and purchasing a small item like gum or a soda or taking out a cash advance for your travel. If it works, you’re good to go. Make sure you do this relatively close to your departure date.
#4 – Pack your bags at least two days prior to traveling. Review the Operations Order (OPORD) to ensure that you pack everything you’ll need during your trip. If you’re going to a school, check out the school website and download the packing list. By packing two days early, you can identify if you’re missing anything and you still have a day to go out and purchase anything you’re missing. You destination may or may not carry what you need. It doesn’t hurt to create a checklist as soon as you are informed of the travel and check it off as you pack.
#5 – Print off your boarding pass ahead of time. If you travel often you know that the lines can get long. If something happens on the way to the airport and you arrive later than you anticipated, you don’t have to worry about checking in. It’s already done. Which leads to the next point…
#6 – Arrive early. The general rule is one hour prior to your flight departure. Depending on your airport, this may or may not be enough time to account for delays. If there’s an accident that stalls traffic or you’re traveling on a heavy traffic day, this time will get eaten up quickly. I recommend arriving NO LATER THAN 90 minutes prior to your departure. You won’t be running through the terminal or cursing the security line because your flight is about to depart. If you are able to smoothly get through check-in and security, you can use the extra time to catch up on some reading or take a nap.
#7 – Join all the airline, hotel, and rental car clubs possible. Because the military pretty much decides where you will sleep, what airline you will fly on, and which rental car company you will use, it’s important that you have a membership with ALL of them. A few years ago, the rules changed to allow servicemembers to keep the points, miles, and other benefits that travelers get through repeated travel with a particular company. For example, I almost always fly on US Airways and recently earned enough miles to get “Gold Status”. I now get free First Class upgrades, if available, when I travel. I have enough points saved up to take my family on a week-long vacation and not have to pay for a hotel while I’m there. I also get free upgrades to rental cars. Other Soldiers think it’s because I’m a First Sergeant that I get all these perks, but it’s really because I make sure that everything I do is accumulated for future benefits.
#8 – Don’t answer the door in a hotel or motel room without verifying who it is. If a person claims to be an employee, call the front desk and verify the individual and their purpose prior to opening your door.
#9 – Keep your room organized. By keeping your room organized it’s much easier to notice if something has been going through your belongings. You will also be able to notice if anything is missing much quicker and you’ll be more likely to have it recovered quicker.
#10 – When in your room, always use the dead bolt and slide latch to your door. Know where all the emergency exits are in the hotel and look up procedures for dialing out of your room in case of emergency. Some hotels require you simply dial “0″ and others require a short two- or three-digit number.
#11 – File your voucher immediately after returning from your trip. Do not wait. Just because regulation gives you five days to file doesn’t mean you have to wait that long. By keeping the folder discussed in #1, all your receipts and information is already located in ONE place and will make settling your travel much quicker. I make it a rule that my TDY is not complete until I file my voucher. So, I submit it the day I return.
#12 – If you use the Defense Travel Service (DTS) to file your authorizations and vouchers, scan your receipts, don’t fax them. Faxing receipts takes longer and you’re more likely to have issues with legibility. By scanning your receipts, you can upload them directly into the voucher and they are easier to read. This means that your voucher is less likely to get kicked back because someone can’t make out your charges.
#13 – Pay attention to your claims. DTS automatically applies the per diem rate to your hotel expenses. If you don’t manually adjust your voucher to reflect actual costs, it’s just going to get kicked back and take longer to get reimbursed. Double-check all your expenses prior to clicking “Sign”. Again, if you keep a TDY folder, this is much easier.
#14 – Consolidate your expenses. Anyone that has stayed in a hotel recently sees the large number of taxes that are tacked onto a night’s stay. Be easy on the poor shlub (like me) who has to review your voucher and combine all these taxes into ONE expense. I hate seeing vouchers with 20 different entries because they separated each individual tax. So, instead of wasting so much time on this one voucher, I’ll clear all the other ones first that made my life easier by combining their common expenses.
#15 – Follow through. Once you’ve sent your voucher or authorization, follow up on it. This goes back to rule #2. Make sure that your voucher is moving through the chain so you can get reimbursed as quickly as possible. DTS has a habit of not always notifying the traveler that their voucher or authorization was kicked back.
These are just some of the tips I can think of. I could really go on and on, but if you follow these simple rules, your travel will be a breeze. If you have other tips, please leave them in the comments.
harold
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:59 amAnd I thought I had it hard in the private sector…..btw…how come there isn’t a web site to verify the Government Travel Card (#3). Suggestion….use PayPal to transfer .01 from the GTC to your checking or credit card (and back to take the charge off of the GTC).