I went thru this last year when our son was flown home from a USAF base in PHX. Even though I clearly had found a MUCH cheaper fare - published fares - on a different airline to GSO, the airforce said that SATO had "private agreements" with the airlines for specific rates and that they were limited to those. The weird part was that he was being transferred to Shaw AFB about 45 minutes from Columbia, SC.. but they didn't fly him into Columbia - they flew him into Raleigh, NC because the rate difference between Columbia and Raleigh exceeded some magic number that justified flying him into Raleigh - over three hours by car from his duty station. They would have put him on a bus at that point, but we picked him up - also a 3 hr drive for us - for his leave.

I told him that if he had said he was driving from PHX to Shaw, he would have gotten mileage reimbursement which would have been more than enough to buy a ticket home. I played that game many times in the Marines. But it's hard to say you're driving from overseas, isn't it

I hope someone can pull a rabbit out of the hat for you - all I can say is that if you're looking for logic in military travel, you'll have a long search!