Get Your Post 9/11 Transfer Right!

Q: I retired from the USAF Oct 1, 2009. I requested to trans­fer my Post 9/11 GI Bill to my wife and two daugh­ters. I was going to trans­fer my ben­e­fits to my 11th grade daugh­ter last week on the Mil­Con­nect web­site and noticed that my wife and youngest daugh­ter are show­ing on the TEB tab of the site, but not my 11th grader. I’ve called the VA, my ser­vice com­po­nent, went to Lack­land AFB Edu­ca­tion and Per­son­nel Office, etc, but no one can help. Yes­ter­day I was search­ing some more on the web­site and noticed there was a let­ter attached near the area of the site that says my trans­fer request was approved 9/29/2009. The let­ter states that only my wife is eli­gi­ble to receive the trans­fer and I could add oth­ers as long as I did it while in the ser­vice. The prob­lem is I never received this let­ter and with it being approved a day before my last day on active duty wouldn’t have allowed enough time to notice their mis­take and add my daugh­ters. What can I do to appeal the mistake?

–Edward, San Anto­nio, Texas

A: I hope that by read­ing this post oth­ers can avoid the same sit­u­a­tion.  There are a few key points every­one should under­stand as you look at trans­fer­ring your Post 9/11 GI Bill ben­e­fits. First, you have to trans­fer your ben­e­fits while you are in the ser­vice, not after you sep­a­rate. Sec­ond, most folks will incur an addi­tional ser­vice require­ment after the trans­fer is approved. Finally, while you can change how much you trans­fer to eli­gi­ble ben­e­fi­cia­ries after you sep­a­rate, you can­not add new ben­e­fi­cia­ries. For that rea­son, it prob­a­bly makes sense for those inter­ested to request the trans­fer as soon as they’re eli­gi­ble and con­sider trans­fer­ring a 1% stake to each fam­ily mem­ber (even if it doesn’t look like they’ll use it). That way you’ll get the clock run­ning on the ser­vice com­mit­ment and have the flex­i­bil­ity to allo­cate the ben­e­fits as you see fit later.

Now, let’s look at your spe­cific sit­u­a­tion.  It sounds like you attempted to trans­fer your ben­e­fits to your wife and two daugh­ters, but some­thing went awry.  I would gather together the doc­u­men­ta­tion from your orig­i­nal trans­fer request. To me, and I’m not an expert in this area, being able to doc­u­ment that the orig­i­nal request included both of your daugh­ters as well as your wife is impor­tant to your case. After you’ve put together the facts and sup­port­ing doc­u­ments, give the Air Force a call. The VA web­site pro­vides the fol­low­ing num­ber, 800–525-0102. Explain your sit­u­a­tion and ask them about how it can be cor­rected. Hope­fully, this will get things mov­ing in the right direc­tion, if not, maybe your elected offi­cials can pro­vide a help­ing hand. Good luck.