The Exchange Reviews 

Home Depot / Exchange Partnership — Great Benefit, Frustrating Experience

The concept is fantastic: military families get tax-free purchasing and military pricing through the Army & Air Force Exchange Service/Home Depot partnership. Unfortunately, the customer experience needs significant improvement.

I recently used the program while relocating and setting up a new home. I successfully purchased more than $5,600 of Home Depot merchandise through the Exchange, but getting there involved multiple unnecessary problems.

First, I encountered an “invalid CID” error with MILITARY STAR and eventually discovered that the name on the card/payment method has to match the ShopMyExchange account. There was no clear explanation of this when the transaction failed.

Then I tried to purchase two Bosch appliances. Checkout repeatedly looped back to the shipping-address page and briefly displayed “We’re experiencing technical difficulties.” I contacted Exchange customer service several times and Home Depot as well. Neither side could see or manually process the order because the two systems don’t appear to give either organization access to what the other needs.

One Exchange representative eventually helped me get one appliance ordered by separating the items. The second item still wouldn’t work.

After yet another call, a representative escalated the issue to a manager and I finally learned that the second Bosch appliance simply isn’t eligible for purchase through the Exchange/Home Depot partnership.

Fine. But why wasn’t I told that?

If a product is excluded, the website should say so. Instead, I spent hours troubleshooting what appeared to be a technical problem.

I’m also a mental-health provider who works with military personnel, so I see this through a second lens. PCS and relocation already involve enormous logistical and emotional stress. Adding hours of unnecessary troubleshooting and phone calls to a process intended to help military families is exactly the kind of cumulative stressor that should be eliminated, not created.

To be clear: the Exchange customer-service representatives have been wonderful. They are kind, patient and genuinely trying to help. The problem is that they don’t have the tools or access necessary to resolve these issues.

The people aren’t the problem. The process is.

I hope the Exchange and Home Depot improve the customer experience, particularly the communication about excluded products and the escalation process when the two systems don’t work together.

I’m taking the time out to give a shoutout to the afree office! Especially Miss Niela the new staff on board. She has been incredible to work with. She’s very understanding when she corrects you she corrects you with a lot of love she always coming around to check all the food trucks and make sure everything is intact. Big up to Miss Pam and Miss Lita and Miss Michelle we appreciate you all.

Absolute horrible experience, ordered 2 Dreamcloud mattresses from aafes 35 days ago and still don't have them. Aafes said they go thru Ashley's furniture for those items and Fragile Park is the shipping company who as of right now still can't find my mattresses. This is totally Unsat and I would not encourage anyone to order furnishings from aafes or use Fragile Pak to ship anything

Great vintage one of a kind items, friendly staff, money I spent going to educate our YOUTHT'S WITHOUT DRUGS program.
Run by YOUTHT'S WITHOUT DRUGS FORCE INC.
A NONE PROFIT CORPORATION.
THEY HELPED ME TO UNLOAD,AND LOAD MY DONATED STUFF.
OUR COMMUNITY DESERVES SMALL SHOPS THAT PROVIDES HELPING FAMILIES A CHANCES TO AFFORDABLE ITEM'S.
SPECIAL THANKS TO ALL VOLUNTEER SUPPORTERS MAKING A MISSION SO SIMPLE.

What a $h!tshow AAFES, both in store and online, has become. Uniforms are never in stock, pricing is skyhigh, and customer service is non-existent. If you're looking to update your dress uniform be prepared to paid a lot of extra as you're force to go to Marlow White, which is the only place that seems to have inventory. Interesting.

If I could leave ZERO stars, I would. Words I would use to describe The Exchange: scam, uncooperative, liars, falsifiers, untrustworthy, fake, narcissist, dishonest, deceiving. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is how they treat our service people/veterans - disgusting

AAfes is trying to scam as I speak. Today they falsely claimed they delivered a Bose Subwoofer and refusing to do anything about. I am an attorney so they are going to see what's up. These are scammers. Not very intelligent people.

I attempted to access my account after two years and not being able to do it. I was told then that you have to have a computer in order to access my account. Today,9/21/25, again. I tried to access the Exchange and was not able to as it told me to change my password. I changed my password twice and still wouldn’t take it. Called customer service they gave me a password to put it. I put their password in and it still wouldn’t let me access the account I was assured customer service that I would be able to access the Exchange by using my iPhone, but I have found again that that’s not true. I cannot access the Exchange.

The Exchange website is a joke and needs to be shut down immediately. Takes forever to receive a code when trying to log on. That's if the code is ever sent. My identity was stolen 6/2025 leading me to create a new password acct to log on; also as well as canceling my credit card and receiving a new one. Since then haven't been able to make any purchasing online; because again, it takes forever to TRY and get a code. Glad I'm running into these problems trying to purchase from the Exchange; therefore will take my business to Amazon. As a veteran dealing with PTSD, I do not have time or energy getting frustrated with this Site. Will not keep wasting precious time trying to purchase from this Site to end up having my identity stolen again. You would think with all the negative reviews The Exchange would as least pretend they cared and addressed these site issues.

Don't let the false loyalty program influence you. It is a complete hoax and a lie. They have a million excuses as to why you didn't receive what is owed and no matter who you contact and no matter what office you call, its always the wrong office. If by some miracle you do get help, they forget all about you as soon as you hang up and never do whatever they promised. They only promised to get you off their phone. Since 2023 I have spent $16,321.81 and I received a tiny fraction of the gift cards promised.

Do not order from AAFES Online Exchange. They are absolute crooks. I placed an order, never received my item, yet they still charged me for it. When I refused to pay for something I didn’t receive, they put it on my credit report and even garnished my checks by taking it from my taxes. This is theft, plain and simple. Avoid at all costs—this company is not to be trusted.

It's 2025, ZERO updates on a order I paid over $1700 for. It's been two weeks, not one update, no contact, the nearby store has no idea when or if the order will be fulfilled and they REFUSE to cancel the order due to "system requirements."

AAFES is the most blatant scam for service members, avoid like the plague.

I have called several times to cancel a order I never received, but paid for. It's been over two months and still no refund or product.

What is right with the AFEES service..nothing especially the website..pure TRASH. I used the milstar card 1 time then months later tried using it again. The card is good standing BUT for some reason the website is so messed up you dont find out until putting items in the cart that it wont authorize the card I have $XXXX dollars on. I called six times to no avail each call is a 45 to 60 minute wait IF you get someone. Simply they dont want you to use it. The website is a disaster never works and they dont care. You get the credit from Military Star but the Exchange wont accept it and it takes 4 hours to get a person on the phone OR not at all. The chat doesnt work either. Govt employees are the worse make you feel like you owe them something.. I dont think so. Seems like a very bad setup B2C setup but who cares it just people who gave their lives for this country who make little to no money. Who Cares Not AFEES SHAME ON YOU the way you service active military and veterans should not be a given default we need options and better service. Closed my card and I'm never looking back to place I once loved because it's about civilian employment not the troops.

The Exchange website need to be shut down it doesn’t work at all. It’s a disaster.
Don’t waste your time trying to order from the site.

Providing case number CASE52474 and order number 6711126690 for reference. I posted this review under Fragilepak but AAFES is complicit for using this company and they continue to use them despite the terrible reputation. For what reason do you use this company? To save money? Time is money and your customer's experience is money, so regardless of the amount or little you pay Fragilepak, you are paying for it in either reputation , lost customers, or additional logistics/remediations in repairing or paying for losses in damaged furniture or property. The biggest joke of a company I have had the displeasure of working with. AAFES uses Fragilepak for furniture deliveries and EVERY time I have to expect I will have the service equivalent of a roast every time. The most recent experience, I had furniture delivered in Nov of 2023 with damage, I contacted AAFES and Fragilepak came out to pick the furniture up what I remember to be a month later. 6 months later on 14 May 2024, no refund. I called AAFES again and asked for a status of my refund and they have to get back with me and the furniture was received by their warehouse in mid-April. This means it took 5 months for Fragilepak to return damaged furniture! Before this round, Fragilepak called me to schedule delivery and I made a schedule date. Fragilepak came, unannounced on a completely different day and I had to tell them through my Ring camera that I was not available and I did not schedule delivery for that day. When I rescheduled, they didn't even show up. The company has no transparency and apparently nobody in charge as it is difficult to find a phone number. It is amazing they can run this sham business and manage to still work with corporations. What a joke, nobody will miss you when you are gone Fragilepak. AAFES, do your veterans a better service if you really care and use someone else, this is truly a shame!

This credit card was supposed to have been cancelled through a telephone call to Military Star in Spring 2018 after my divorce and before moving overseas. At this time of cancellation, there were no issues from Military Star as it had a 0 balance and could have been cancelled quickly as requested.
Military Star failed to go through and cancel the cards. (all other accounts and credit cards cancelled with out issue). Five years later my ex wife, who has no legal ties to me and all financial obligations are removed from my responsibility, used her supposed cancelled Star card and purchased 8,000.00 worth of merchandise and did not pay. I have e mailed and called Military Star and they are refusing to return calls promised or answer emails and work with me on this. My pay is now garnished to pay her bills.
These are charges that if Military Star had done what was requested of me, to cancel, an obligation they have to cancel these cards, I would not be going through days of work to fix this serious issue. This has severely affected my job prospect as I cannot get a security clearance for a job I was going to get, as well as purchasing a home