I’ll start off by saying if I lived near an airport I could easily interview for Global Entey I would do it without a lot of thought.
I travel internationally at least once a year and some years twice a year. I live 2 hours from LAX which is the closest interview location. The thought of driving minimum of 2 hours each direction depending on traffic, parking and even getting anywhere near LAX is not appealing to me or my H.
For those of you who have it Is Global entry worth the hassle?
My husband has it and says yes, it is worth it. He had to drive to Orlando from Gainesville (2 hrs?) for his interview. Can you time it where you do it when you’re going on a flight somewhere anyway?
It comes with a Pre. IMO, get it!
Yes! And I don’t travel that much. H, who travels for work, insisted that I get it. It saves time.
Yes, get it, very convenient.
My husband interviewed at SFO and the wait was 4 months whereas I chose to interview at Newark when visiting my daughter and they had lots of interview slots.
We only go on about 4 trips a year, including maybe one international. We love it as we don’t have to do the full body scan or have the pat downs. We find it well worth it and we are trying to get D to get hers as well. It’s $100/5 yrs so only $20/yr. it includes pre-check and priority in immigration when returning to US.
Cost isn’t a factor. I believe it is worth the money cost but I don’t know if it is worth the hassle cost in terms of time spent and stress of dealing with Los Angeles traffic. My H hates leaving his easy Local Bubble. He hates driving across town.
I can get precheck in Oxnard which would be easily doable but I can’t do Global entry there. Precheck isn’t a big advantage for our domestic travel as most of our domestic trips we leave out of our local airport where going through security takes just minutes. I don’t think our local airport participates in TSA precheck.
I see that I can also interview for Global entry in Long Beach. It’s a longer drive but might be less hassle. I am going to see if I can convince my H to do it. No sense me getting if if I can’t get him to go get it.
For those of you who use Global Entry at LAX how much time does it save you on return trip to the US? I’m not so concerned about going through security as usually if I’m using LAX it is for a international flight and I usually go business class which speeds up the line.
Make an overnight adventure of it…a special restaurant, or a show the evening before and Uber to an early morning Global Entry appointment.
It is helpful if you are not checking your bags. If I check my bags then I end up getting through passport control very fast and then I wait for my bags. Most business people who travel a lot only has carry on bags, so it makes a lot more sense for them.
You may want to check out your “expensive credit cards,” because some of the cards will pay for the global entry application fee.
I have it and DH did not last time we traveled international.
I got through immigration without waiting in line. DH had to go through the regular line. He got to the baggage area while I was still waiting for mine. The bottom line was it didn’t save me one minute of time, only some aggravation. If I had not checked a bag, different story.
I’d rather wait at the baggage area (seats) than to stand in the immigration line.
@cbreeze your baggage area has seats? Wow! Ours does NOT.
I don’t recall seeing seats in the baggage area of our international arrivals terminal. In fact, once our luggage was delayed because they couldn’t get the door to the cargo area open, so we ended up sitting on the floor for about an hour.
I would also rather wait in the baggage area than immigration, but I felt I had to admit that if you are checking bags, it doesn’t really save you on actual time. At least it didn’t in my experience.
It doesn’t make much difference UNTIL it does. If you fly in through a nightmare immigration line (as you see sometimes in JFK) it can make a huge difference.
Our local airport now has it, so we could have been patient and waited (although how long the wait would have been was anyone’s guess). Instead we took a day and flew to Las Vegas and did it there. So, yes, for us we thought it would be worthwhile - and it has been.
Travelled with family this summer. I have global entry and was at the curb in 15 minutes. Brother did not and it took him 2 1/2 hours to get through.
Global entry comes not only with the ability to skip the immigration lines but also with a fast lane for the customs check.
^^^There was no separate customs line at my airport for Global Entry. I object!
Get it! Very convenient. And even with checked luggage there is still a designated line for GE.
On my return from my last international trip, I declared food and was fast tracked in a line where my bag got scanned.
OP, you can interview at any enrollment center, so if you are flying to a cities that always have openings, like Newark and Miami Airports you’ll likely get an interview before your scheduled one in LA.
I love it! The wait for appointments at my airport was something like 6 months, so I made an appointment at JFK when I flew in there one time. Very quick and easy if you have all of your stuff filled out before you go. And I love my TSA Pre, too. And you can use it for fast lanes in/out of Canada, which is great!
I LOVE It!!
I love it. One of the times I was there, a couple flew in from a neighbor island since they don’t have global entry interviews there, only in a Honolulu. They were going to shop over the weekend and then go back home after the interview. Agree you can have appointment and you interview wherevervwirks for you.