For an upcoming weekend trip, I saved about $150 total on two round-trip tickets (Minneapolis/St. Paul-Denver) for my daughter and me by flying Frontier Airlines instead of my usual airline Delta.
But, when I tried to input my Global Entry number on the Frontier Airlines website, I found out that I could not do so.
For those who don’t know, having a Global Entry number guarantees me TSA PreCheck, which is very, very nice.
In their FAQ section, Frontier merely says that they do not participate in Global Entry or TSA PreCheck.
Why not? I thought this was a universal thing among airlines.
I’m guessing that no-frills Frontier saves money by this decision, but I wanted to ask here if that’s a correct assumption.
And what other airlines don’t do this?
I’m now regretting my purchase, because now I’m sure to have to go through the nation’s worst airline security (Denver) on what’s probably a super busy time, a Sunday afternoon.
Yes, there are several other airlines that don’t participate in PreCheck, much to my chagrin as well. Spirit is another of them, and I have to assume it’s a cost-saving measure because most of the majors do support it.
The main problem is that it costs money for an airline to modify their reservation system to integrate with TSA’s Pre-Check stuff. Frontier and Spirit and other low-cost carriers decided to put off the work as a cost-saving measure and re-evaluate the demand later. Now that Pre-Check is becoming more and more popular, they are starting to do the necessary work to get up and running. Frontier was actually supposed to get Pre-Check working in July of this year, but they didn’t. In any case, they should hopefully get it working soon. Not soon enough for your trip, though.
:dubious: When TSA initially rolled out Pre-check, they had projected that they would have about 25 million US travelers signed up by the end of 2016. They currently have just under 3 million enrollees. This lack of interest and difficulty in retaining TSA employees has resulted in long wait times at security check points across major airports around the country this summer.
TSA has tried to encourage more people to enroll (lowered the fee to $85 for a 5 year enrollment) but many people that don’t travel for work, still don’t see the value.
Also, just because you have pre-check on your boarding pass, doesn’t mean that the pre-check line is actually open. Just because you paid for Global Entry, doesn’t guarantee that the airport you fly into has Global Entry kiosks or that they will be working. It’s all a racket.
True, it’s not guaranteed available. Even where available you can always be redirected to regular entry at the system’s or the staff’s discretion.
One needs to be realistic about what are your travel needs. Lots of travel on the major carriers to and from hubs like JFK/LAX/MIA? Likely worth it. Twice yearly short-hopping on regionals between Whoville and BFEast? Probably don’t even have a TSAPre lane.
I’m glad I paid the $95 fee, good for 5 years. Googling just now tells me that I’ll pay $100 to renew in a few years. Still worth it, to me, at $20 per year.
I travel enough to make it worthwhile, and it adds to my peace of mind knowing that I can shave 20-30 minutes off of the time I’m standing in a TSA line, especially as I’m often at airports where heavy traffic to the airports frequently mean that I’m running late.
Well, they certainly didn’t meet their expectations, but the number of enrollees is still growing (albeit slower than they would like) and airlines are hearing from their biggest customers (frequent business travelers) that they want PreCheck.
I’m currently in the application process; I live in Chicago, and have to fly for business fairly regularly, so being able to speed up getting screened at ORD is a huge benefit.
OTOH, given where my primary client is located, most of my travel right now is to Birmingham, Alabama. They do, in fact, have a TSAPre lane at BHM, but I’ve never had to wait in line at the Birmingham airport for longer than 3 minutes, anyway.