One step closer...!
The other day I spent two hours on the phone, making a few calls to the United States. Fun. Doing this was just as important as booking flights, scheduling movers, etc,.
My first order of business:
Booking lodging for the other side (in Fort Riley area).
It's bad enough that when we arrive in the Fort Riley, KS area we won't have our family vehicle, but what would be worse is having no place to stay!
I learned a valuable lesson when moving to Germany: If you don't have a reliable friend who is currently *already* in the area you are moving to who can help you book things, take matters into your own hands.
Better yet, always rely on yourself.
If you've read some of my other posts, you'll know that we were *almost* shit up a creek when arriving to our German duty station. It was not a good feeling. We let our sponsor go ahead and book our lodging at the time, AND HE DIDN'T BOOK IT though he said he did! Finding last minute accommodations was rough.
So to PCS back to the U.S., I hopped online and found some of the off post and on post options for Riley.
There are quite a few, ranging from $60-$119 per night, but I started with on post lodging first because of the no car thing. As much as I'd love to be off post figuring out a new city, we are moving to Riley because of my husband's job that will begin shortly after we arrive. I don't want him to deal with finding rides until our vehicle shows up.
Little fact: We've never ever stayed in on-post lodging for a PCS. Crazy, right?
When my husband went to Georgia for a month (a few years ago for some kind of class), he stayed in post lodging 45 days. We've stayed in lodging at Ramstein a few times (because of appointments/surgeries at Landstuhl for my son), but it was more like staying in the apartment I have now. It wasn't the big hotel attached to BX.
But for all of our PCS-es, we've always stayed off post, for one reason of another. Generally, it's because post lodging had no vacancy.
So, I called up Candlewood Suites on post at Riley. I tried booking online through IHG, but I wasn't sure if the online rate was correct; plus there was no way to request conjoining rooms (because I already knew that we'd require two rooms for a six person family).
The lady was super nice and luckily they had vacancy for our arrival date!
Now I do know that the army will reimburse up to 10 days of lodging CONUS side, so I went ahead and booked the full ten days, just in case. I doubt post housing will offer us a home within ten days, but maybe, just maybe, we might be able to find a rental off post within that amount of time. Maybe.
*Heads up: I had to give the hotel my credit card info to secure the reservation, but they did not put a hold on it.
Now here's the deal: If you book based on price and expect reimbursement, note that the army will require a receipt. So it really doesn't matter if your night rate is $100 or $45. What you spend is what you'll get back.
However, it should be said that there is a daily cap (per diem) on what they'll reimburse, so don't assume they'll pay for your five star hotel stay at $500 per night. They won't.
Plus...I honestly don't think you'll find a five star hotel within 20 miles of most duty stations. Ha.
Now, if we need to stay any longer than 10 days in lodging (even if it were off post), the eleventh night and thereafter comes out of our own pocket. Basically the army doesn't want to give anyone BAH on top of a 'free' stay at a hotel. Makes sense, but it's not always that easy for people to find a place to live, especially when said people are coming from overseas and don't have a car! Yikes.
It is possible that we can get an exception to policy for a longer, reimbursed stay in lodging, but I have learned after 10+ years of being an army wife that I can't assume anything.
NOTE: Some duty stations, even stateside, DO require a non-availability statement from on-post lodging for you to be reimbursed for an off-post hotel stay (a document that says they cannot accomidate you & your family or because there isn't vacancy). The government likes to keep their money in their own pot. We had to have this statement when seeking reimbursement for off post lodging at Fort Campbell; for both our incoming and outgoing PCS; to and from Campbell. Double check before booking an off post hotel at your losing and gaining duty station if you'd like your money back. If you like throwing money away...throw some my way, would ya!
Housing:
We did go ahead and submit orders, DEERS info, and current LES to housing via online for 'advanced application', but I am well aware of the way they date eligibility, which is frustrating as all hell.
Otherwise, I've noticed a lot of rentals popping up on rent.com, realtor.com, zillow, AHRN, etc, and most have included in their description that properties will be available for occupation August 1st or September 1st. That kinda tells me that more will pop up soon.
I do worry about the house thing every day, but it's kind of out of my control until we're there :-/ I refuse to sign for anything (off post rental agreements in particular) before seeing it in person.
Vehicle Shipping:
Another phone call. Yay.
This will help some of you USAA folks!
USAA holds the lien on my car AND yes, even to ship it back to the states, we require lien holder authorization to ship it. I know. Strange. I mean, I understand the concept when shipping out of America (it'd be harder for them to repo in Germany), but to ship back to the States? Dumb. I don't make the rules, and neither does USAA. It's what the shipping center (VPC) requires.
So I called USAA up, and Karen at the lien department was awesome. She said "No problem", and told me the letterhead document was sitting in PFD format under 'My documents' on my online account, ready for print.
But then she says "Oops. I forgot to ask, will you be shipping within 30 days?" To which I replied, "No". We plan to ship June 19th.
Basically she told me that the letter would be no good if after the 30 day mark, so I do have to call back within the appropriate time frame and have them resubmit a new lien authorization letter for intent to ship. No big deal, just a heads up for the rest of y'all.
Honestly, I called early because in 2014, USAA mailed this document through snail mail rather than submitting it to my online account for print. I was afraid, living here in Germany, that if I waited too long, the letter wouldn't arrive by the time we needed it (First Class mail can take up to 12 days sometimes). I didn't know about the 30 day thing, nor did I know that they don't snail mail the letter anymore. Now I know, and now you do, too!
Ahhh. So that's that.
The next thing we plan to do is adjust our lodging on the Germany side to line up with our final house walk through and flight. It kinda already does, but I think we booked it too far in advanced. I would rather be in a house than a hotel for eight days if I can help it, plus OCONUS side lodging caps out at 3 nights for reimbursement. We'll fix that when the husband returns.
He's still gone. Sigh.
I'll update when something changes!
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