I don't know why this is an issue every time I attempt it. I get told 18 different things by 16 different people. Attempting to go from LHR>JFK>ORF. Langley is my TDY location. Then am going to book my own (miles) to Tucson for a couple days leave. Optimum would be to fly home (LHR) from Tucson. Attempted to do that and CTO said the following FLIGHT COMMENTS: CANNOT FLY ON GOV RATES FROM A LEAVE LOCATION DELTA WILL ALLOW A STOP IN JFK
Amended my tickets to pickup the Heathrow return from JFK. Then they kicked back for this.
** CANNOT FLY OUT OF JFK YOU MUST HAVE A ROUND TRIP FROM ORF THE AIRLINE WILL ALLOW A FREE STOP IN JFK BUT YOU MUST FLY ORF JFK

So basically they are telling me I have to fly out of ORF which is stupid and probably costs more money.  Can someone crack the code for me?

Edited September 29, 20178 yr by uhhello

I am a little confused, but here's what I used to do and was given the Finance stamp of approval. 

In DTS, book travel directly to/from LHR and ORD via the gov rate.  Then, call the airline directly and work with them to modify your itinerary to whatever it is you want it to be and pay the difference out of pocket. This way the USAF only pays and sees a receipt for the original TDY only travel. You'll have to adjust your per diem on the days you are on leave to 0/0 as well

23 minutes ago, uhhello said:

I don't know why this is an issue every time I attempt it. I get told 18 different things by 16 different people. Attempting to go from LHR>JFK>ORF. Langley is my TDY location. Then am going to book my own (miles) to Tucson for a couple days leave. Optimum would be to fly home (LHR) from Tucson. Attempted to do that and CTO said the following FLIGHT COMMENTS: CANNOT FLY ON GOV RATES FROM A LEAVE LOCATION DELTA WILL ALLOW A STOP IN JFK
Amended my tickets to pickup the Heathrow return from JFK. Then they kicked back for this.
** CANNOT FLY OUT OF JFK YOU MUST HAVE A ROUND TRIP FROM ORF THE AIRLINE WILL ALLOW A FREE STOP IN JFK BUT YOU MUST FLY ORF JFK

So basically they are telling me I have to fly out of ORF which is stupid and probably costs more money.  Can someone crack the code for me?

Do a constructed travel worksheet to show that it saves the government money.  Perhaps the underlying issue is appearing to use the city pair discounts to do leave travel.

7 minutes ago, Weezer said:

Do a constructed travel worksheet to show that it saves the government money.  Perhaps the underlying issue is appearing to use the city pair discounts to do leave travel.

Yeah, just did a bit of googling and the city pair fare from orf>lhr is $478ish.  Tucson area>LHR is $800ish.  JFK>LHR is only $300 so it would be saving money.  I guess I'll call CTO Monday and explain more.

Also, CTO still booked the travel anyway.  If my AO approves then what is the point of them saying its not "legal" but booking it anyway.

CTO is not allowed to book leisure travel, so when you do LICWO, you are cleared hot to self procure airfare.  However, you will only be reimbursed up to government constructed cost of your TDY trip.  So, go on delta.com, purchase whatever you want, upload your delta receipt to DTS, AO approves, finance reimburses up to city pair amount.

It really is that easy.  I've used CTO for probably 1-2 TDYs out of my last 15, no shit.

Edited September 30, 20178 yr by brabus

How do you get the government rate on airline tickets?

You're starting travel from lhr, so it going to infer that you're talking to CTOs with British accents.  

Stop.

like others have said, LIC clears you to self procure.  Talk to Finance when you file the voucher.  If you want defense in depth, put in the remarks (you're probably doing your own orders in DTS) that self procurement and LIC are approved per your commander. 

Just be sure and book on an American flagged carrier. I've seen dudes get refused reimbursement when they booked on Virgin, etc.  City pairs are your friend, and back me up with the JTR.  I left the Heath about 3 years ago.

Edited September 30, 20178 yr by Mike Honcho

8 hours ago, matmacwc said:

How do you get the government rate on airline tickets?

Unless your planner is booking you months in advance, the government often can’t get the government rate.  

And then Orbitz is typically cheaper, but restricted fare.

What BFM said. I usually don't worry about it. If the differential is substantial, I will call delta and try to get a govt rate that way (50% success rate). The couple times I used CTO was because the differential was more than I was willing to suck up, but again, that has only been a factor a few times out of many TDYs (of which I almost always do LICWO).