A free seat on a military aircraft, when a seat is left over. It is real, it is earned, and it is the lowest boarding priority there is. Here is the honest version.
A 100% rating by itself is not the test.
You qualify if VA has rated your service-connected disability permanent and total. That includes a schedular 100% rating designated permanent, and it includes Total Disability based on Individual Unemployability (TDIU) — being paid at the 100% rate because your service-connected conditions keep you from holding a steady job — where VA has designated it permanent.
Check your VA rating decision, or your Benefit Summary letter on VA.gov, for the words permanent and total. If your rating is not permanent yet, this door is not shut forever — it opens the day VA designates it permanent, so keep the letter and check again after any rating change.
Six categories board. You are the sixth.
Seats are offered to Category VI only after every higher category is seated. Federal law forbids seating a disabled veteran ahead of an active-duty member or that member's dependents. That floor is set by statute — 10 U.S.C. 2641b(f)(1) — not by the person behind the counter. No terminal can waive it, and arguing about it at the counter will not move you up.
Availability varies by destination. Some days nothing goes where you are going.
These destinations are set by DoD policy (DoDI 4515.13), not by law, so they can change without an act of Congress. Verify the current list with your terminal before you plan. If where you want to go is not on it, that trip is a commercial ticket — Space-A will not get you there.
Without the card, nothing else in this page matters.
You need the DoD Uniformed Services ID (USID) privilege card showing 100% DAV in the affiliation block. That is the wording the DoD instruction uses and the wording the terminal agent looks for. It is the card formerly issued as the tan DD Form 2765; if you already hold that legacy card, it stays valid until it expires — but do not walk into an ID office in 2026 asking for a form number that has been replaced.
If you are TDIU: call the RAPIDS office and confirm before you drive. I have not found DoD stating in so many words that permanent TDIU veterans are issued this card, and I will not promise you something I cannot show you. Ask first. Save the trip.
You do not have to stand at a counter to register.
Sign-up is per terminal. Pick the terminal or terminals you intend to fly from and register with each one. Three ways:
You may list up to five destinations. Your sign-up is good for a 60-day period. Each terminal publishes its own sign-up email address and phone number on the AMC Travel Site — use that terminal's, not a general one.
Closest to home for Kansas readers: McConnell AFB, Kansas.
Air Mobility Command publishes these CONUS passenger terminals:
Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio also takes Space-A sign-ups, though AMC lists it as a non-AMC terminal. Not every base has a passenger terminal. Confirm yours on the AMC Travel Site before you go.
This is where people get hurt financially.
The flight costs you nothing. Everything else comes out of your pocket:
Have backup lodging and backup transportation planned before you get on the aircraft. Monitor the terminal's flight schedules for your destination — both directions.
I will not give you a clean answer, because the official sources do not agree.
A 2019 VA news article says dependents of disabled veterans are not eligible. The current DoD instruction — DoDI 4515.13, Change 7, effective 11 January 2024 — provides for a dependent USID privilege card for "any dependents accompanying the member" with 100% DAV in the affiliation block. Those two do not line up, and the DoD instruction is the newer one and governs the DoD program.
Call the terminal you plan to fly from, ask that exact question, and write down who told you. That is the only answer worth acting on. I would rather tell you the truth is contested than print something confident and cost your Family a trip.