Military Movers in Los Angeles — PCS & PPM (DITY) Moves

PPM moves: where we fit

On a PPM you're paid a percentage of what the government's move would have cost — so hiring an efficient hourly crew and pocketing the difference often beats both full-DITY truck rental and letting a TSP take the whole allowance. We provide what reimbursement requires: empty and full certified weight tickets, itemized invoices, and a paper trail finance offices accept. You keep the difference; we do the lifting.

What military families get

• 5% military discount on all services, active duty and veterans, every day
• Certified weight tickets routed into your move day (scale stops planned, not improvised)
• Base access experience: gate procedures, sponsor coordination, housing-office scheduling windows
• Flexible dates around report dates — and same-week capacity when orders move fast, which they do
• Storage between housing assignments from $99/month

Typical military move formats (2026)

PPM, and the paperwork that decides what you get back

If you are arranging the move yourself rather than taking the government-arranged one, you are doing a Personally Procured Move — the thing most people still call a DITY. The Department of Defense fact sheet is specific about how it pays: a member-elected PPM reimburses 100% of the Government Constructed Cost, meaning what the government would have paid to move you itself. Anything you spend below that figure, you keep.

The requirement that catches people out is not the receipts. It is the weight tickets. DoD requires certified empty and full weight tickets from a certified weigh station for each segment of the move, and the exact rules vary by service branch. No tickets, no reimbursement — and there is no way to reconstruct them after the truck is unloaded.

So the sequence matters: weigh empty before loading, weigh full after loading, keep both tickets, and repeat for every leg. Best Movers LA builds the weigh-station stops into the schedule when you tell us at booking that this is a PPM, and gives you an itemised invoice in a form that goes straight into your claim. Confirm your own branch's current requirements with your transportation office before the date — the rate and the paperwork have both been revised in recent years, and your office has the version that applies to you.

Southern California bases and what each one does to a schedule

Gate access is the variable nobody budgets for. A civilian crew needs to be sponsored on, and the time that takes depends entirely on the installation and the hour. Los Angeles AFB in El Segundo, Naval Base Ventura County at Port Hueneme, Camp Pendleton, Naval Base San Diego, Edwards and China Lake all run different visitor procedures, and every one of them is slower at shift change.

What makes the difference is doing it in advance: give Best Movers LA the installation, the gate, your sponsor's details and the housing office's move-in window at booking, not on the morning. Base housing usually has its own inspection and hand-back timetable that is stricter than any civilian lease, and it is the fixed point everything else has to fit around.

Two practical notes. PCS season runs late May through August and it is the same peak the whole civilian market is in — orders in hand means book immediately, not after the household goods counselling appointment. And a short-notice PCS is normal work here rather than an emergency: Best Movers LA runs same-day and next-day slots daily, at the same rate as any other day.

Frequently Asked Questions

Available across Los Angeles County