Defence may pay for you to travel within Australia if you're on recreation leave or a course break. You can use recreation leave travel to visit your family or your nearest capital city.
Eligibility
You may be eligible for recreation leave travel if you have no resident family and not on either a long-term posting overseas or short-term duty overseas.
You don't have to have any nominated family in Australia to be eligible.
Travel benefits
You can get one return trip, including door-to-door travel, each financial year.
If you have nominated family, you can travel from your housing benefit location or temporary duty location to the location of your nominated family, if they're in Australia.
If you don’t have nominated family, you can travel from your housing benefit location or temporary duty location to your nearest capital city. If you’re in a capital city, you can travel to the next closest capital city.
You can choose to visit your family in a location other than where they normally live. In this case, your travel benefits will be the lesser of:
- your actual travel costs
- what it would cost to travel by the Based on where you're travelling to, the types of transport available, the actual cost and the estimated value of your pay and allowances for travel time. to where your family normally lives.
If you're a trainee, you may be approved for up to 3 return trips each financial year, including any graduation trip.
You can also get vehicle allowance if you drive your vehicle to and from the terminal, or if someone else uses your vehicle to take you to and from the terminal.
You'll have to cover any additional costs if you choose a more expensive way to travel.
If your family is overseas, you can use your travel benefit for a return trip to your nearest international terminal. You'll have to pay for the overseas portion of your trip.
Defer or advance your benefit
If you don't think you'll have time to use your benefit before it lapses at the end of the financial year, you can apply to defer the benefit to a new year.
If you've already used one benefit in a year, you can apply to use the next year's benefit early. You can only do this if you expect to be eligible for the benefit in the year you advance.
You can only advance one benefit at a time.
Transfer your benefit
You can transfer the value of your benefit to one or more close family members so they can visit you.
Your benefit is a return trip from your housing benefit location to the location where your parents live.
This will cost $500.
You want your parents to visit you.
You can use up to $500 to bring your parents to you. Any costs above $500 will have to be met by you or your parents.
Apply for travel
Start the application process by completing Travel Request Form (AE505). You can download this from the intranet Forms tab on the Defence Protected Network (DPN).
If you need to update your nominated family, you must complete the Amendment of Personal Data Details – ADF (AD150) form. You can also download this on the DPN.