When you are PCSing to and from an Overseas location you have the option of sending Unaccompanied Baggage aka an Express Shipment. We have always chosen to use this option!
What is Unaccompanied Baggage/ an Express Shipment? This fact sheet from the Ramstein site has some great info about it! Basically it is a percent of your household weight allowance that your allowed to take with you overseas that you can send ahead via air. So for example, our Household Goods (HHG) weight allowance is 14,000 lbs, we were able to send up to 1600 lbs via the Express Shipment. The reason the weight is so small for the Express Shipment is because it’s sent via air which is much more expensive then when they send the rest by boat. Yes, everything we own that does not travel with us in our luggage or the Express shipment takes the slow boat to Germany!
Another important thing about the Express Shipment is that it arrives MUCH faster than the rest of the HHG’s on the boat, usually within 30-45 days after shipping. We shipped our Express Shipment Nov. 1st and it’s due to arrive in Germany Dec. 1st. We shipped the rest of our stuff Nov. 8th and it’s due to arrive at the end of December.
Why does it matter how long it takes to arrive? Well for example if we arrive in Germany and get a house within 1-2 weeks (first week of Dec, let’s say for this example) we will get loaner furniture and some loaner silverware/dishes but that’s about it. Having our Express Shipment there means we can have it delivered right away and have access to the stuff we chose to ship over quickly.
Unaccompanied baggage packed and waiting to be loaded into crates on the truck.
What goes in your Express Shipment? This is not our first PSC so it was much easier to deicide what needed to go. The hardest part is deciding what you can do without HERE so you can have when you get THERE! Yes, that means we were here without some handy things here (see list below) but since our HHG were going a few days later and we were heading to TLF (Temporary Living Facility, i.e. like a hotel) it didn’t really matter. Yes, it was a bummer to realize we had not microwave to make popcorn and that the manual can opener didn’t want to work, but we survived. I could see this being a bigger issue if you were shipping things 30 days or so before leaving your home. We’ve learned from doing this a few times you can ship your Express Shipment right before moving out and it’ll still normally get there before you get a house. Although we did choose to stay in TLF for 2.5 weeks on this end so that we could send all our stuff to Germany 2.5 weeks before flying out. It’s all about choices and personal preference, we’ve found it’s much easier going without stuff when you have friends around (like here in Alabama) than trying to do it overseas when you don’t know anyone.
Top 11 Things We Always Send Ahead:
1. Computer!
For us it’s our iMac desktop computer, printer & printer paper. It’ll be nice to get our printer back but I’m really enjoying our new Macbook!
2. Cooking supplies
New Crockpot because we kept the old one here (I’ve had it for 16 years!) to use in TLF and then we’ll donate it, kitchen knives (that was a bit tricky to use tiny knives the last few days in the house), nice pots & pans (we keep the older ones to use until we sent with HHGs), utensils, silverware, plates/bowls, can opener, microwave, and stuff to make holiday desserts & cookies, and this was only because we are PCSing smack dab during Thanksgiving, 2 of our kids birthdays, AND Christmas!
3. Bedding, blankets, & towels
Make sure you know what size the TMO furniture will be. I know we’ll have a full sized bed for us & twins for the kids so that’s the sizes I sent ahead. No need to have bedding for our Queen sized bed that won’t be there yet. Also it will be cold when we get to Germany so I sent extra blankets as well. We also send towels, gonna want to take showers right away! 🙂
4. Clothing & shoes
We sent ahead some of our cold weather clothing since it’s still fairly warm here in AL. We kept some to wear/carry in our luggage. Also sent snow boots, snow pants, hats, mittens, and such items.
5. Dog stuff
This is our first PCS with a pet. We sent ahead a new bag of food for him, some of his supplies, and well as the baby gate we use when we need to keep him in the laundry room.
6. Tools, to include scissors, as I’ve found out the hard way many times.
We sent the drill, hammer, measuring tape, just a few essentials to get us through until the large shipment arrives.
7. Small TV & DVD player
Make sure you check the size, they only allow smaller TV’s to go in the Express Shipment.
8. Cleaning supplies like our vacuum!
We’ve learned the hard way that it’s best to send a vacuum ahead! So much easier to borrow one from friends here when needed. Also sent steam mop & steam cleaner as we’ve learned from experience we normally want to do a quick clean of the house before we start unpacking stuff. Also and Ironing board & iron for uniforms!
9. School/Craft Supplies
Such as extra notebooks, paper, pencils, pens, crayons, markers, etc.
That way you don’t have to run out and buy stuff as soon as you get to the new school and find out they need extra items. These are things I buy after the season and keep on hand anyways at home, I just sent a tupperware tub full of some stuff I thought we might need after we arrive.
10. Pro Gear aka Professional Gear
For my husband this includes any military items/books/resources and for me it included stuff for my photography/Doula stuff. The Pro Gear is packaged and weighed separately since we each get 500 lbs that does not count against our weight limit.
11. Any specialty items
What is this? Well really it depends on a few things. Such as WHEN you are traveling and WHAT is coming up in your family. For us we will arrive in Germany literally a few days before Bubby’s birthday, then we have Boo’s birthday on Christmas Eve, & then Christmas. So these specialty items for me included a tupperware box with gift wrap, tape, scissors, gift bags, gift tags, and tissue paper. It also included some Christmas gifts that we had gotten a great deal on and went ahead and purchased.
Here is part of my actual list, and yes, I listed almost 95% of the items, and yes, I realize I have issues 😉 The main thing I wanted to list was the New items we’d bought for the PCS so I’d know if anything was damaged or missing. As you can see we scratched off the card table & chairs because Mr. B was concerned about weight issues.
Unaccompanied baggage gone!
Wondering how long the packing & crating for Unaccompanied baggage takes? They schedule it for 1 day, unlike the HHG which is scheduled over 2-4 days depending on how much stuff you have. For us they arrived at 10:15 am and started packing everything up. They started loading the crates & truck at 1 pm (after an hour break for lunch) and drove off by 2 pm. So it was close to 4 hours that we had to be at the house for them to pack everything up, which isn’t too bad!
Want a chance to win a Free Printable Custom Note Card File?
Just to make things a little more fun, because PCSing can be filled with lots of Non-Fun let’s see who knows how much ‘junk’ we sent ahead! 🙂 We were allowed 1600 lbs for our Unaccompanied Baggage/Express Shipment. Using the pics and lists from the post can you guess what our Express Shipment weight was? Comment below with your best guess! One guess per person please 🙂 First person to guess within 20 lbs will win a free custom note card printable file!
Whew, just typing that all out wears me out all over again, LOL!! I hope this information is helpful if you have a Overseas PCS coming up soon and if not that it provides a glimpse into what goes into the process of doing an Overseas PCS!
UPDATE! Y’all were WAY off, Alica was the closet guess, she’s been contacted. Drum roll please……
our Unaccompanied Baggage weight was 815 lbs! That’s it! Now if I knew we were going to be living in a German hotel for so long I would’ve sent more! But then again I’d have no where to put it….
We didn’t even do an unaccompanied shipment this time! We couldn’t think of what we wanted to bring, and our shipment is projected to be there not too long after we get there!
We always do and I’m so glad this time because there is a huge chance we may not even get into a house before Christmas and we can have the Unaccompanied baggage delivered to TLF, which has Christmas gifts in it 😉 And even if we do get into a house our HHG aren’t scheduled to be there until after Christmas anyways. Gotta love PCSing during the holidays!
Great post. I am pcsing from Alabama to Germany same time frame this year. Pcsing during holidays.
So glad your finding the information helpful. You can follow me on FB and ask questions or send me an email as well if you need additional info 🙂 Hope the PCS goes well!
We didn’t do unaccompanied this time around because we shipped everything so early. That definitely wouldn’t have worked with kids though. I’m guessing 1,236 lbs.
We did this for our PCS to Germany, but for whatever reason, they would not deliver our unaccompanied stuff to the hotel. We were in the hotel for over a month before getting a place to live, so by the time we moved in, our HHG was also ready for delivery! They ended up moving in our unaccompanied and HHG the same day. At least we tried to plan ahead!
We’ve had a few people check and supposedly we can get it in TLF if needed (we did in Iceland as well), I’ll update from that end if we do, but if not we have a possible back up plan for getting it 😉 I’m hoping we won’t be in TLF long enough to have to worry about it, guess we’ll see soon!
I’m kicking myself now for not doing an express shipment. We were told that our express and our HHG would both make it at the same time, so we didn’t even bother. It looks like they would have actually arrived about a week apart, but that’s still a whole week that we won’t have our important stuff.
I agree, even a week without the important stuff can be a big deal. Plus with the HHG they have to book a whole day to deliver so sometimes it takes longer to schedule a day than if your just getting your Express Shipment delivered first. We always do Express & HHG, moving back to AL we had to wait in TLF for 2 months for a house BUT we didn’t know that ahead of time. I always err on the side of planning to get Express first just in case we can get it before the HHG 🙂 In Iceland we had to wait 2 months as well and got our Express delivered to TLF, that would’ve been a LONG wait in Iceland without our winter gear!
Great list! I missed towels the most- hubs convinced me we only needed his microfiber ones to get by… Yeah, no! Lol I’m guessing 1300.
Thank you for this list!! This is being bookmarked for sure!! My guess is 1013!
This was very helpful – ty so much!
Awesome post! We are moving to Germany for our first ever PCS move. Plus, I’ll be 7 months pregnant in 3 weeks when we move, so your blog has helped out greatly! Thanks!!
So glad you’ve found the info helpful 🙂 Hope your PSC goes great!
I’m so glad I saw this post! I was scratching my head with other things and completely missed things like the extra vacuum and extra school supplies 🙂 This really helped! Thank you
So glad you found it helpful!
Awesome post! We are planning to do it kinda reverse. Send our hhg out way early and then live with only the stuff going in our express packout so I expect our express to arrive after our hhg. We have a toddler and one on the way (PCSing at 8 months pregnant. Yay? Lol). Instead of worrying about what we want when we get there I am worried about the stuff we need to make it through that last month. Ahhh, the stress. But its all gonna work out! Despite how this probably sounds, I feel less stressed out after readjng your post! Thanks!
So glad you found it helpful, I hope your PCS goes great! Also know that if you live in the hotel off base while you house hunt you can have your HHGs delivered there as well. That was super helpful for our 3 month stay while we house hunted.
Hi there! I just stumbled upon this particular blog looking for information on HHG and UAB. Definitely valuable information for my PCS to Germany! (he is already there) My hub is an E-4, we are allotted 8000, which is plenty for just us two and our fur baby! But my question is, what percentage of HHG can be shipped in UAB?? I did the math from your numbers and it was 11.4%? I have no idea if that was right. I realize that sounds weird, but I am trying to find out all the information I can to pack being it is just me packing all of our stuff!! Thanks so much! Your blog is amazing BTW!
When your husband does the online briefing it’ll give you the weight amount. It’s normally not over 1000 lbs because it goes by air, for 2 people it should be around 500-600 lbs. You husband should be able to get that info for you 🙂 So glad your finding the blog helpful!
Does the military provide funding for TLF stateside before you move over to Germany? We are trying to figure out how we will live in our apartment without most/all of our household items and still be working up until move time!
I’ve also read that there is no reimbursement for car rental, but have been told different things from different military personnel regarding our move.
You need to check with your base finance office as the answer for each base will vary. We were able to get 10 days paid for in TLF at our leaving base and then we paid the other 10 out of pocket…but not really out of pocket per say because you still get your housing allowance. There is no reimbursement for car rental. It’s much easier and cheaper to rent on in the US than to try to have to rent one here so ship your car early.
Great information! We are PCSing in August to Spang and it will be our first PCS that we have done together. For some reason the pictures on your blog will not load, so I am unable to see your specific list of items. Is anyone else having this problem?
Sorry about that I fixed, the photos! Unfortunately one of my album links with tons of photos got disconnected and I have to go back and manually add all the photos to the many posts 🙁
I am getting ready to move to Spangdahlem with my 3 children, We are so excited…. Do you recommend bringing American washer and dryer or do most places have them already?
Also I am wondering if anyone you know has their kids in German school, I will be contractor there and it costs a lot to put them in DODEA? I have heard there is a great home school community there?
Any advice will help, and thank you for your site… it is great!
Hi there!
No, I don’t recommend bringing an American washer & dryer. Most german houses don’t have the hook ups for them and even if they do they use way more energy to run. The base provides a washer/dryer to use, not sure how that works with contractors.
Some people do put their kids in German schools but that works better if they are little because German is spoken in the schools and not English. There is a homeschool community as well, you can find information about that on Facebook. I also have a page on Facebook you can follow as well and message me 🙂
thanks for this: we’re sitting in an army hotel in Germany wishing we had half this stuff right now. Moving into our house in a couple days. Also wish we would have added our bicycles to our UB!
Thanks for the list. We just had our express shipment leaving Germany and I used your list.
So glad that you found it helpful 🙂
We’re headed to Ramstein in a few weeks…. HHG/UAB pack out is next week… Anything you wish you would have sent UAB that you didn’t list? Trying to get my stuff set aside for UAB. Thanks for the helpful tips!
Hi there!
Nope, my list covered all we needed and then some 🙂 We’ve just PCS’d again to Guam and I used the same list.
Excellent right up and great list. We just PCS’d from RAF Lakenheath, England to Holloman. Our UAB was picked up 9 Jan and will be delivered to us 21 Feb. They offered 16 Feb but I had appts all day and they don’t deliver on weekend or holidays . HHG was picked up 17 Jan and we are still waiting on that. I’m hoping to have our HHG by 1 Mar. I highly recommend doing an UAB shipment to and from overseas.
I agree, we ALWAYS do a UAB shipment, and most often we’ve needed it before our HHG’s arrived. Here was the only exception since we had to wait a month on a house so we got it all at the same time but we had it if we needed it!
Have you ever traveled with a pet? What was your experience if so?
We have PCS’d twice with our Westie. If you search ‘PCS Pet’ in the sidebar on the right it should pull up all the info for you 🙂
Great list! This is our second PCS to Germany. Didn’t do a UAB shipment the first time. Would have never thought to send an extra bag of dog food (especially because it is a specialty food)!
Hi there! So glad that you found the list helpful, hope your PCS goes well!
Thank you for this!! We’re pcsing out of Germany and I want to show my husband! Especially since this is our first PCS with a baby :D. We weren’t sure what was ‘allowed’ in the UAB.
So glad you found it helpful!
I love your blog. Thank you for all of the information!
We are PCSing from Alaska to Germany this summer. We didn’t do a UAB to AK because our HHG were going to arrive before even we did, since we drove. Definitely going to utilize the UAB option this PCS though.
We have Christmas ornaments, tea cups, and other fragile and sentimental items that we drove with us in or vehicle to AK, but now we are faced with having to get them overseas safely or somehow to the lower 48 to leave with our family. Do you have any suggestions? Do you think UAB would be a safer option than sending them in HHG or by postal service?
UB will get them faster but your also weight restricted. Our stuff that is fragile I just pre pack myself to make sure they are secure and leave the box open for them to inventory before sealing. I wouldn’t trust them to be sent by Postal Service for sure. If it’s things your always going to worry about you can use the option of having them sent to storage that way you don’t have to keep moving them.
Our UB is still waiting for a “mission” so it can be delivered, but our HHG is here and being delivered in two days. It has been almost 60 days since the packout.
Wow, it sounds like something went wrong with your UB! If its under 1000 lbs it goes by air and is supposed to arrive in 2-4 wks. We always make sure to keeps our around 800 lbs.
How do you know your weight allowance for PCS to Germany? My Hubby says it is different then conus weight allowances. We are not on orders yet but seriously hoping to be shortly. He is always so paranoid about weight allowances ( we never come close) but he still freaks out about the weight. LOL
He can ask at TMO, weight allowance is based on rank. They will tell him how much he gets.
Super awesome article! Outlined all the important things I need in our move to Hawaii!! Love, love love it! Also, just wanted to let you know that the ‘Fact Sheet’ link in the beginning of the article reported an 404 error. Just FYI but great post! 🙂