I don't know about other parts of the govt, but in the military, all official travel has to be booked through the military travel office. They are required to book on contract fares, regardless of cost (see another thread for the cost benefit of that). This means it is impossible for an individual to pay a higher fare to get a favorable airline. If you did manage to circumvent that, the travel claim process also checks to ensure you used the contract fare. You only get reimbursed to the contract rate, so you'll be paying the rest out of your own pocket. As to using the miles for govt travel, do you really think that is reasonable? Do you expect the govt to hire the hundreds of extra agents it would take to find reward seat availability to match required flights? You've tried to find a reward flight yourself so you know how difficult it is, now imagine trying to do it with hundreds of people. Wouldn't setting up and running such a system cost more then the money saved by using the miles? The system in place now works like some advocate, employees give their miles to the govt. The fact is, however, that none of them get used by the govt because it is impractical. So in fact the tax dollars are being wasted now because the govt gets neither the free flights nor the increase in employeee morale that comes from the ocassional free flight.