relangford

Although the using population is limited to military (and retirees), would there be a place on FT for postings on Space Available (Space-A) travel? There are some blogs on military-related sites, but would it make any sense to have something on FT?

Doc Savage

Why is this in Trip Reports?

In any case, I'd suggest that FT is probably not a good place for such a forum given the very limited audience. Probably better on military related sites.

Moomba

As this appears to be a request for a new forum I shall move it over to TalkBoard Topics.


Moomba
Moderator: Trip Reports

kipper

OP, when asking for consideration of a new forum, it is generally helpful for TalkBoard members if you answer the following questions:

JDiver

Disclosures: /Mod hat off; I am a military veteran.

Interesting idea, and I'm sure it will garner both discussion and TalkBoard consideration. (If I'd not requested and been granted an "early out" to attend school, I had sufficient accumulated leave I'd originally planned a 'round the world itinerary using Space Available.)

One roadblock I see is that "Space A" (Military Space Available Travel, for eligible active duty and retired military members and their eligible dependents and certain civilians employed by the military overseas) is not available on commercial airlines; it is only available on military aircraft (most commonly USAF AMC -Air Mobility Command MAC - Military Airlift Command and some military charter aircraft. Many if not most by far depart and arrive from / at military bases. (The only exception I'm aware of is BWI.)

FlyerTalk at this time has no vehicle that deals with military and military charter flights. And none of this is available to the average FlyerTalker, other than those FT members who are coincidentally military, retired military or military-employed overseas civilians. They're most likely here for the same reasons everyone else is here on FT, and it's got little to do with military travel other than specific offerings commercial airlines provide military (we have an extensive thread on the American Airlines | AAdvantage forum).

OTOH, it seems there are more likely venues "Space A" would be discussed at length, such as the topic-dedicated forum at SPACEA.NET (http://www.spacea.net) and MilitaryHops at http://militaryhops.com.

As well, there are:

http://www.amc.af.mil/amctravel/

http://www.militaryonesource.mil

http://militaryhops.com, which links to the top twelve sites for military and retiree travel.

http://www.baseops.net/spaceatravel/

It may be an attempt at such a forum here would represent an unnecessary duplication of effort.

This is all likely grist for the mill.

Kagehitokiri

OP may also have been asking which forum to post in?

MSPeconomist

There are apparently a few blogs that focus on military travel. The one I've perused in Boarding Area seems to be about travel for military business (and therefore more generally government travel) rather than leisure travel using military (and retired military) benefits. In that direction, it might make sense to expand the scope to include more general government travel--a topic that arises regularly in the hotel and airline fora--if we consider some sort of a military travel forum.

JDiver

I'm unsure if you're suggesting consideration of a military travel forum, or a broader government travel forum that would include military travel?

MSPeconomist

I'm thinking more of Government Travel (including Military) since I don't envision that Military (alone) would get enough traffic to justify a forum by itself and it isn't naturally a subforum of anything here, if we were to decide to include some place for military travel discussions (including space available travel). Implicitly, this would mostly refer to USA government and USA military (as do the discussions now of government airfares, government travel agencies and procedures, including the Fly America act, although some hotel government rates would seem to apply to foreign government employees as well) since there wouldn't be very much discussion of government/military travel under other countries unless there are commonalities for British Comonwealth, EU/NATO, etc.

kipper

Would questions about city pairs for an individual airline/questions about qualification for status go in an individual airline forum or the government travel forum?

Would questions about specific hotels or chains go in that forum, or the hotel forum?

rwoman

If questions are airline/hotel specific (status, property, etc), I'd think they'd belong in the respective program's forum.

In a general sense, gov't / military members might have questions about selection in general, which could fit in a gov/mil forum.

rwoman

As an example, I think this thread - http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta...nt-travel.html - currently residing in the DL forum, would fit in a US Government / Military Travel forum.

MSPeconomist

Other examples would include government travel agencies such as SATO, ticketing and hotel reservation procedures, exceptions to using the government contract carrier, Fly America Act, how per diem is calculated for travel and non travel days, use of a personal vehicle for government business travel, etc.

tcook052

Appreciate the input and is there really enough demand for such a forum or is this a solution out looking for a problem?

JDiver

If military travel, there are also military hotels, e.g. Hale Koa (House of the Warrior) military hotel in HNL near the HHV.

I was a member of the Marines' Memorial Association with the Marines' Memorial Club and Hotel on Sutter St. at Mason St. (close to Union Square) in San Francisco. We had reciprocal access to a gazillion hotels and clubs from Australia to China, Singapore and many more in the USA - link.

It gets somewhat complex, so I'm merely attempting to point out this is a large-ish project.