Ladies and gentlemen,
I offer you the following advice, take it or leave it. Get to know the details of your own pension scheme intimately! By all means take advice, but read the literature (all details are on the defence intranet), use things such as the pension calculator to confirm your findings etc. Take no one persons advice as gospel, but confirm it with your own understanding of your situation.
The two pension schemes really aren't that complicated, but AFPS05 seems to be misunderstood, or simple not understood, by many people. Everyone posting on here is smart enough to understand how their pension works, if you just take the time and effort to research it.
While not criticizing the two individuals involved, who I am sure are well meaning, lets look at the recent advice from Deleted and Nav Attacking:
Deleted He said "...if you were on the AFPS 05 and left 1 day before your 55 point (Officers) you would be thousands of pounds better off over the life of your pension..."
Is this correct, well, basically yes, but with some caveats. First of all, this applies to everyone on AFPS05, not just officers. Without going into the full details it all boils down to the fact that if you leave at 55 you get a single gratuity, there and then, if you leave before 55 you get one gratuity when you leave, and another at 65. Therefore there is the scope to make more money IN THE LONG TERM. This situation doesn't just apply if you leave 1 day before 55, but for 2 days before, 3 days before, etc, with a decreasing amount by which you are better off for each day early you leave. How far back does this work - well it depends on you personal salary and pension, but a rough estimate I worked out would be up to about 3 months before 55 - BUT DON'T TAKE MY WORD FOR IT - CHECK IT OUT YOURSELF!!!
So, why am I even bothering to comment on what Deleted said - well, there is a down side. Although if you leave JUST before 55 you will be better of by the time you are 65 and 1 day, between the ages of 55 and 65 you will recieve considerably less pension (only 75%) compared to leaving on normal retirement at 55. Thus, you gain in the long term, but loose in the short. This aspect was missing from Deleted's comment.
You have to decide such things as:
Will I live to reach 65 (family medical history) - although I think if you die before 65 your widow (if you have one) gets the second gratuity anyway, but I'm not sure!
Do I need as much money as possible when I retire at 55 or can I afford to wait till 65? (do you plan to work from 55 or retire immediately, etc).
While not wishing to criticize Deleted, I hope I have shown that his comment is more complicated than at first appears. Next.
Nav Attacking
He said "...Best advice given was to leave in Apr not Mar as the pensions uplift is made on 31 Mar therefore pension is worth more!..."
AFPS75 provides a basic set of tables for pension values I believe, of rank against years of service with an amount in the box, at least it did the last time I took an interest in it (I'm on AFPS05). Presumably a new table is produced every year, so by leaving just into Apr, as opposed to Mar, you benefit from using the new table with increased figures. Brilliant, so where is the issue? Well.....
On AFPS05 your pension is based on a % of the highest average salary you have earned over a 12 month period in the last 3 years. So, lets look at two examples, retiring at the end of Mar 2011 (case A) and the end of Apr 2011 (case B). In case A the pension will (if the person in question got a pay rise in Apr 2010) be a certain % of the salary for the period Apr 10-Mar 11. In case B the pension will be a certain % (an almost identical % to case A with only 1 month extra served) of the salary for May 10- Mar 11 and Apr 11. Therefore the person in case B will only benefit from 1/12th of any payrise by leaving at the end of Apr as compared to Mar - AND ALL PAY HAS BEEN FROZEN FOR THE NEXT TWO YEARS!!
Additionally, if you leave in March, case A, and start getting a pension, then it will recieve it's annual inflation update in April, even if the forces aren't getting a payrise. So it would appear that it is actually better on AFPS05 to leave just before April!
Therefore, while the advice given by Nav Attacking has relevence to those on AFPS75, it has little impact, and perhaps even be the exact opposite, for those on AFPS05.
By the way - GIVEN THAT PAY IS FROZEN FOR THE NEXT TWO YEARS, the tabular pension values used for AFPS75 are also unlikely to go up next April, so the advice given (to be fair - passed on) by Nav Attacking may not be relevant in these particular circumstances. In fact, with pay rises frozen it might also be the case on AFPS75 that it is better to leave in March and get your annual inflation rise in April!!
BOTTOM LINE - Take as much advice as you can, but get to understand your own pension scheme inside and out - it is in your own best interest!!