Returning home from a business trip to Hilton Head I printed out my boarding pass at the airport and was surprised to see it marked TSA prechecked. I got to keep my shoes on!!
But why? When I’ve travelled with my gf we have had this, but she travels frequently on business and her employer, IIRC, paid a fee and did paperwork so she would get this perquisite. On my flight down (on Delta) I wasnt prechecked. Flying home USAir I am.
No complaints, but why? (I could have asked the TSA guy but they scare me) (and now my flight is delayed and it looks like I’ll miss my connection)
The same thing happened to me last weekend. There was nothing on my boarding pass, but they seemed to be pulling a bunch of people out of the line for pre-checking. Perhaps there was some profiling involved…
I’m not sure. It is a change from what I’m familiar with. Must be a new program.
My experience is even if you’ve filed and qualified for TBA pre check it doesn’t guarantee it for every flight. Maybe 5% of the time my tickets don’t qualify me for pre - check. That’s working as intended, not a system error I’m told.
I applied for TSAPre but don’t get it. My wife is slightly older than me and gets it sometimes though she didn’t apply. We think the difference is a) her age; b) that I travel to a wider range of countries; and/or c) I went to a liberal arts college and engaged in subversive activities like being a member of the college women’s center. (Really. This appeared in a friend’s FBI file as a subversive organization.)
I had the same thing happened when I flew in March. I didn’t ask for it, but it appeared on my boarding pass, and I was quite happy to take advantage of it.
I’ve never applied for the pre-check, but I’ve gotten it on almost all the flights I’ve taken during the past year. Out of curiosity I once asked about it, and ISTR being told that the airlines can tag frequent fliers for the pre-check.
If you a member of an airline frequent flyer program, you’ve been vetted by the airline and your name is randomly selected for TSA Precheck from a pool of names submitted by the airline to TSA. I’ve had it for several times, including one flight in August where I haven’t flown with that airline in six years (but remained on their FF list the whole time.)
You can sign up for TSA Precheck, and if approved for it by TSA, you keep the status for every flight for five years.
TSA has been automatically prechecking people for a while. They really want more prior to sign up for it. I hate it when there are infrequent travelers in the precheck lane.they are often confused and slow.
I’ve heard that, but I’ve never not gotten it since I signed up, and I fly multiple trips each month.
We took a trip this weekend: Rhainnon8404, myself, the Kiddo, and my MIL. Both MIL and Kiddo were selected for TSA precheck going and coming. I have no idea why. It’s possible that my MIL signed up for the program, as she frequently flies to visit her other children, but I have no explanation why our son was selected. It was printed on the boarding passes, which we printed from home, so there didn’t seem to be any sort of profiling involved… I guess he just won the “we think you sound like a trustworthy sort” lottery for this week.
Profiling may play a role. Every time I fly I wear my security ID. It doesn’t always work but most of the time I get waived through the TSA gauntlet. On my last round-trip flight, I was randomly selected for TSA Precheck on the outbound flight. But on my flight home I was not selected. However, after making it through the TSA checkpoint and dumping my carryon stuff for X-ray inspection, a TSA person saw my ID, then waived me through the rest of the checkpoint.
Me too. Once I had to wait in the precheck lane while the guy in front of me took off his shoes, dug his plastic ziplock bag out of his carry-on, took his laptop out of its case, etc. What made it even more annoying was that he appeared to be a business traveler (suit, expensive-looking rolling cart and computer bag) who you would think would know the pre-check rules.
It’s because unbeknownst to you, the TSA sent agents around to your room who searched it and checked out your shoes while you were asleep. It’s a new program.
What do you mean by “signed up”? Getting a trusted traveler number involves getting a face-to-face interview with a TSA agent, some background checking by them, and a few weeks’ wait for the results. If you haven’t been through that, you should not be expecting pre-check clearance as a routine matter.
Or are you talking about some other program?
Back to the OP:
The TSA randomly approves some fairly small fraction of each day’s frequent flyers for pre-check status. This is done on a day-by-day basis so you’d normally expect that IF you get it going outbound, you probably WON’T get it returning a couple days later.
Remember, the TSA’s goal is to eventually have 80% of all passengers getting trusted traveler numbers and using the Pre-check lanes. At which point pre-check lanes will still be quicker due to not messing with shoes, ziplocks, and laptops, but they’ll lose the super-efficiency we have now where there’s usually only one or two people ahead of you when you join the pre-check queue.
For all the whining about TSA, this is an example of them trying to streamline things for the vast majority of low-risk travelers so they can concentrate on the high-risk (or more accurately unknown-risk) travelers.
Yeah, I get it a lot, since I fly a lot, but dammittohell, why is the Pre-check lane never open when I fly? Phoenix-nope, Newark-nope, Dayton-nope, Philly-nope. Not this past summer. Got an open pre-check lane in Long Beach of all places, where the regular security line was like 10 people long.
I like it but it’s frustrating when they’re not staffed well enough to open it.
I was profiled into a pre-check line once. I was about five back in line, and the line to my left was empty (but restricted). An agent waved me over, told me to keep my shoes on and walk through.
So yeah…it was super-efficient then. So much so that they were grabbing extra customers. I enjoyed it.
