Same thing with Global Entry. Partner was stressed because it expired, no appoints, etc. Flew through a location w/ Global Entry and went there at open, in and out in 15 min; poof, TSA PRE worked next day.
Somehow I automatically got TSA Pre that last time I passed security and moved through the Pre line, which is much faster. I'm thinking to just get Global Entry which covers TSA Pre and lasts five years.
This is definitely not true. Most people do pre-check and not global entry. Most people care about traveling domestically much more than internationally and the process is longer for approval
Do you have Global Entry? It’s open to citizens of many countries and you can feasible get off the plane and be going through security (past immigration) in under 10 minutes. I wish other countries offered a Global Entry experience.
My company paid for me to get precheck/globalentry years ago and I still have it after having left. I can say from my experience about 99% of the time it actually is a shorter line and a much smoother experience. And even in cases where its not shorter, it can still be faster since people don't have to take off shoes, belt, etc.
wish that were true, but the variance of wait time, even with tsa precheck, etc defeats the purpose. needs to be reliably consistent (and short) for me to take advantage of a 30min show time.
TSA pre-check makes a big difference - almost like flying before, except you get to walk past all those other lines.
I didn't want to explicitly support the TSA, so I went with "Global Entry" - same benefits and more, and company paid for it. I have no idea if funds go to TSA or not, but I felt better about it.
The TSA employees did not care about Pre-Check. They said that it was an international terminal (I was flying domestic) so there was no Pre-Check. The only perk I got was to be able to go through the old style detector. I still needed to remove electronics. They did not care.
Also, the line I am referring to is the baggage check for customs. First comes the passport check, then you retrieve your luggage, and then you go through customs again with your luggage (which is never checked). Global Entry does not help you with that last line, which can be brutal at some airports.
I have Global Entry -- which gives precheck, but still get to the airport early. There have been times -- SeaTac is notable for this -- where the Precheck line is longer/slower than the regular line.
I have global entry and feel the same. On the application they didn't ask for anything they didn't already have so it wasn't a big deal. Well worth it considering the included pre check.
I do the same, but some airlines don't participate in TSA Precheck (like Frontier), and it's not uncommon for the Precheck lanes to occasionally get shut down, especially later in the evening. It's also possible to randomly NOT get Precheck, even though you're flying with a participating airline and you are in the program.
On top of that, I've seen a number of recent reports from people who said that the Precheck lanes were randomly shut down at peak travel times, forcing Precheck members to get stuck in the regular lines with everybody else. Others report that large numbers of non-Precheck people are getting randomly sent through that lane, dramatically slowing things down and causing wait times of 30-60+ minutes.
Precheck is great, but even those of us who have a relatively privileged flying experience need to stay involved and aware about the monster that is the TSA.
... security policies changing (shoes on or off?), repeated "ATTENTION, BY IMMEDIATE ORDER OF THE TSA" announcements, people doing dumb things, people being rude, baggage getting lost, flights being overbooked...
There's a lot.
Most of the time it works out, but that was the point of the observation: most can still be pretty stressful.
I bought Global Entry two years ago. $100 for 5 years. The cost compared to tickets is pretty much a rounding error, and the experience at US airports is like night and day compared to having to go through regular security.
Yes, it's a fucking protection racket, yes, it's a shakedown, but it's so worth it. If you fly more than once a year just go apply for it like yesterday.
During my first trip through $100 precheck (via global entry) I was directed through millimeter wave machine. I opted out. Precheck was not prepared for opt out. In the end, it took longer to get through pre-check than the normal+optout.
I think for the average passenger, that's very true. For frequent flyers, the airport experience has actually improved in many ways. Global Entry and PreCheck make airport formalities much less inconvenient (I sped through LAX immigration and customs in under 60 seconds on Wednesday). OTOH, most passengers were stuck in line for a very long time. The TSA is actually tolerable when you have PreCheck—I'm sitting in PDX right now and clearing security took no time at all, no one in front of me, no nude-o-scope, kept my shoes on.
$99 for global entry for 5 years, includes tsa-pre was such a no brainer.
I've noticed in MIA airport, one security line might be packed , then you walk 4 minutes to the next one and its nearly empty (same staff at both).
Toronto security heading back to the US is fascinating, tons of passengers, but the screening process is broken up into multiple human touch points. Felt more fluid.
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