Reduced Retired Pay Age

[slc]

Is it necessary to submit ALL active duty orders/DD214 from an individuals career to VPC in order to view/receive the reduced retirement?  

[bcuziknow]

No..2008 forward if you want credit for it.

[slc]

Sooo yes ? You have to submit all orders etc? From 2008 on

Edited April 27, 2020 by slc

[Guardian]

I’ve never read into this. What are the details?

[gearhog]

10 hours ago, slc said:

Sooo yes ? You have to submit all orders etc? From 2008 on

 

7 hours ago, Guardian said:

I’ve never read into this. What are the details?

Based on my recollection, for every 90 days of qualifying sets of orders, you can begin receiving your ANG/AFR retirement paycheck 90 days earlier than your 60th birthday. It amounts to a substantial sum of money. Details are on the ARPC or VPC website which lists which orders qualify. Search for "Reduced Retirement". You have to sign up, get approved, get access to the online worksheet, upload, have it reviewed, processed, and approved. The whole process took months for me.

Definitely start now and here's a pro tip: Don't try to figure out which orders do and do not qualify. I downloaded every individual set of orders from AROWS that were listed as "potentially qualifying" on the RR worksheet. I went all the way back to 2008, even for short 2-3 day TDYs. (With the exception of State "ST" orders). I renamed all the files with my name, date of the orders, and some official sounding keywords such as "Activation, Contingency, Deployment, Afghanistan, etc..." Then, I uploaded every individual file to the Reduced Retirement worksheet. Over 150 orders and it took 2-4 minutes per order - a real ass pain on a gov network. It took days. Apparently, an airman sits there and downloads the .pdfs and reviews every set of orders to determine if they qualify - or do they just look at file names and descriptions? I don't know. I'll say nearly all of mine were deemed "qualifying" and i will begin receiving my Guard retirement 2.5 years earlier (if the country is still solvent).

Edited April 27, 2020 by torqued

[slc]

Thanks torqued! I looked into this a few years ago and was just wondering if ARPC was able to "automate" this as it pertains to uploading orders etc. (which i knew to be a big ass pain).  Obviously we're not there yet!  I'll start working on this (should be able to get it down to age 56 for retirement!)

Thanks for the tip about "renaming" the orders!  

To add: since FY15/16, you can push/pull days from the previous year etc to get your 90 day aggregate required for the 3 month reduction (ie if you have 120 days from year 1 and 60 from year 2, you can pull the extra 30 from the 120 year and add to the 60.  Training/schools count; AT/UTA etc do not count.  Can be reduced to no lower than age 50 as well.  

[gearhog]

1 hour ago, slc said:

Thanks torqued! I looked into this a few years ago and was just wondering if ARPC was able to "automate" this as it pertains to uploading orders etc. (which i knew to be a big ass pain).  Obviously we're not there yet!  I'll start working on this (should be able to get it down to age 56 for retirement!)

Thanks for the tip about "renaming" the orders!  

To add: since FY15/16, you can push/pull days from the previous year etc to get your 90 day aggregate required for the 3 month reduction (ie if you have 120 days from year 1 and 60 from year 2, you can pull the extra 30 from the 120 year and add to the 60.  Training/schools count; AT/UTA etc do not count.  Can be reduced to no lower than age 50 as well.  

Yeah, I figured if the RR worksheet can look at AROWS and list the orders as "Potentially Qualifying" or "Not Qualified", it should be able to transfer the files directly into the system, but who knows...

Your extra 4 years of retirement pay is decent chunk of change!