I have had precheck since close to the beginning and have never not had it on my boarding pass. Occasionally an airport doesn’t have a separate line but they usually hand you a card that allows you to skip the shoes and laptop step. I don’t understand gambling and not just paying the $85.
I guess I see it the other way. If I travelled a lot more I might feel differently, but we travel maybe 5X/year and since we seem to get TSA almost all the time, why waste the $? For the occasional time we have to go through security and take off our shoes and take our laptop/ipad out, its not that big a deal.
S17 flies back and forth from Roanoke to Laguardia several times a year. His biggest gripe is the security line at Laguardia. Roanoke is no problem.
I just signed him up for an appointment for TSA Pre.
Thanks for the Christmas gift idea!
I can get CLEAR for $79/year. Still gonna pass.
I wonder if it really is random. I get it sometimes, but when my kids were younger and they were traveling with me, each of us always got it.
I don’t travel enough to purchase it, though I have gotten it randomly on a couple of flights. I offered to get it last year as a Hanukah present for D and her bf, who travel more than I do and who go to Australia once a year. They declined, apparently because her bf sometimes travels on his non-American passport. I will offer again next year.
When I retire, I plan to travel more frequently and I will invest in some type of pre-check program at that point.
PreCheck and Global Entry are both great, but they’re only useful if you travel solo or with companions who ALL have them.
I usually fly first thing in the morning…6 am flights. Our small airport TSA precheck line is often not open at that time.
Also, I have sometimes gotten behind a passenger who has TSA precheck for the first time, and is taking off their shoes, and coats, and getting their computers and liquids out…even though the TSA folks are telling them NOT to. That really slows down the flow!
^^^ My parent lives near a small airport that never has Pre-check lines. I smile at TSA, show them the Pre-Check boarding pass and they say, “Oh you don’t need to take off your shoes. Sorry, that’s the best we can do for you.” That’s still a big help.
DH used to have the airline status, but now that he is traveling less for work and I have the airline credit card, I have the status. Occasionally we have to fly on separate itineraries, so one of us will get. TSA precheck and the other doesnt. When we test going through separate lines, frequently it hasn’t made that much of a difference (eg in Orlando).
I mostly fly Southwest. Since I have A List status, I never worried much about getting Precheck since I always got through security promptly. But we got Precheck and Global Entry for a recent trip abroad, and now I am hooked. Even when the regular line has 0-2 people and the Precheck line has 10 (which sometimes happens in my airport on off hours), I still go through the Precheck line because I love not having to take off my jacket, belt and shoes.
Pre check and GE help a lot in avoiding the random SSSS on the boarding pass that triggers a much more invasive pat down than in the past. My sister in law felt extremely violated and humiliated after her pat down aka legal groping.
Second mobile passport app for international travels. For domestic flights, Global Entry is the best. Even though with global entry, the TSA pre-check might occasionally not shown, it happened rarely (just to make you realize how great the pre-check is! Lol).
I’ve had pre-check for about 4 years now and it’s been on every single ticket I’ve flown. I fly roughly 20-30 round trips per year. The primary reason I signed up was actually to use the metal detector instead of the full body scan - I didn’t want to start glowing from all the radiation. Not having to take off my shoes and take the electronics out of my backpack is almost a side-benefit albeit a huge one.
SWA had an issue where if you booked through a travel agency your KTN wouldn’t get put on the reservation. A quick call to an SWA agent always took care of it, even when I was all checked in and had my boarding pass on my phone, standing at the entrance to the TSA security line. Every once in a while in that situation I’d look at the pass, remember I forgot to call SWA, immediately call them, and get a fresh boarding pass on my phone. Just about a 2 minute process.
One nasty thing about signing up for TSA Pre - the wait for an interview can be as long as 5-6 months at SFO. At least that was the case about a year ago, not sure about now. JFK is a lot better, maybe a couple of weeks out. Same with DEN. Do some planning well in advance - this is not a sign up and get your membership immediately type of event. Unless things have changed recently, interview stations are sporadic, not many locations. In Northern California for example I think SFO is the only location.
There is a Twitter account you can follow that sends you a notice whenever there is a cancellation at SFO, but you have to work fast and be flexible.
I love GE but it all gets bogged down for me when I have to go through the full body scanner (2 hip replacements that set off metal detector) which lights up the part of my calf that is missing due to a childhood sledding accident. That in turn makes me have to wait, sometimes for a long time, for a female to pat my leg down. I’ve stopped telling them that a male is fine, since it’s below the knee, as they insist it has to be a female. It doesn’t even matter if I show them my leg; I still have to wait for a female.
Who knew that an accident over 55 years ago would be such a problem when traveling.
I just signed up S17 for an appointment here in NYC. Lots of locations. His appointment is for Dec 17, but Dec 9 was available (4 days from now). I guess the process has improved.
My whole family has pre-check now and as someone else above mentioned, occasionally with Southwest it will not show up on our boarding pass even when our KTN has been entered, etc. A phone call or stop at the ticketing counter takes care of it. It has happened twice to us, I think. Overall we’re all very glad to have the pre-check status.
H and I both have TSA pre and we have been using the Mobile Passport app for quite awhile. Last March when we returned from London via San Francisco the regular line and Global entry lines were long. We walked right up to the Mobile Passport line and were through in a couple of minutes.
Not every airport has Mobile Passport, but it’s worth getting if you can use it.
Also, some airport terminals that are all international flights don’t honor precheck.
SW will give you “fly by security” if you buy a business select fare, and other airlines usually do the same. Of course, precheck is cheaper in the long run, lol.