How RAT works

When you're active duty inthe Army and you move from one overseas duty station to another, you get a benefit called "Continuous Overseas Tour (COT) travel. Basically, the Army pays for your family to travel back to the United States Mainland. That's what my family did in 2016.

For civilians, "Renewel Agreement Travel" works similarly. Here is the process.

1. First, confirm eligibility with your division's HR section. They will generate a Request for Orders (RFO). Also, check your Leave and Earnings Statement (LES) for make sure you have home leave.
2. Show the RFO to the official travel agency and get an estimate for the cost of the tickets.
3. Create the authorization in DTS. This is a bit tricky because Defense Travel System (DTS) application wasn't designed for family travel. Contact the DTS guru to make sure you enter things correctly. Use the estimate to enter the approximate cost (and booking fee) for each family member as an expense, without requesting that the tickets actually be booked.
4. Once approved, *then* you can take the Form 1610 back over to the travel agency to book the tickets.
5. Check with the Government Travel Card (GTC) guru to make sure your GTC is activated. When ready, you can pay for your tickets. Don't do this *too* early, because -- remember -- you have to wait until the travel is over before you can file your voucher and get the GTC balance paid.

One thing to note is that the only thing you're entitled to during your RAT is some meal and incidental expense (M&IE) for you only, on the days of travel only. No rental car, no lodging, so family expenses. It's just airfare and a for airport food.