It is so annoying that reaching exalted on one character and getting their tabard doesn’t let you use the tabard on your alts unless they too are exalted. Like seriously blizzard, no one cares which one of my toons got exalted with that faction. I’m talking about the army of the light and argussian reach tabards.
Edit: didn’t realize that they apparently just don’t show up for alts until the refund timer is up
You can use the appearances on any character as long as you have the tabard on one, including those tabards. I am looking at my collections on a character that doesn’t have rep with either faction and both tabards are usable.
They removed the reputation requirements (including the AB tabard that still required exalted) a while ago. Maybe you recently bought the tabards and the refund timer is still on them? They won’t be added to your collection for other characters to use until it’s gone. You can right-click and favorite the appearance to remove the refund timer.
It does though.
You have to actually use the transmog on your main once to lock in the appearance. Once you do that, however, any alt can use that appearance as well.
Either that or wait for the resale period to lapse.
But you definitely don’t need to reach exalted on alts.