Hmmm… I never though of that. Maybe I’ll try that next time. My luck, I’d get selected for ‘special’ treatment instead though.
I hadn’t flown for almost 10 years, but I was pre-checked on both legs of my trip from San Jose to San Diego last month. It was a pleasant surprise, but only a minor perk as the “real” security lines weren’t that long to begin with.
My question is, why don’t people with security clearances get automatic pre-check? If you’ve talked to 37 of someone’s closest friends and neighbors, I think they can probably be trusted on a plane.
On our trip last month, I got pre-checked and my wife didn’t on the flight to, and she got pre-checked and I didn’t on the flight home. Nobody could explain that.
Seems like separating groups moving together would cause more confusion than shortening lines. Fortunately our lines were short to begin with.
Here’s one for the books, though. We had a connection each way so we took four planes. Each one left early and arrived early. Has that ever happened in history?
Yeah, I hadn’t flown in a few years, either, but I’ve had to fly several times at short notice in the last year, and I was surprised by this. My boarding passes have been stamped “pre checked”.
Just like a security clearance at DOD doesn’t automatically get you one at DOE. They’re separate systems, and they look at different things.
I’m not sure if they’re still having Customs administer it. I pretty much had to sign up for Global Entry when I got it.
100% of active duty military do automatically have precheck for more or less that same reason.
For everybody else I suspect it’s a matter of there not being a trusted ID card which says “I’m a Federal security clearance holder.”
I would expect that IF you do have such a clearance the TSA pre-check program background check gets pretty well short circuited.
Although as we have seen with many folks over the years, inclusing such recent examples as Major Hassan & Eric Snowden, having a clearance and being 100% trustworthy in all respects are not necessarily synonymous in practice.
Nah, it’s just a way to rake in money with a new fee, just like all the crap the airlines have been doing.
They may have changed the criteria. I attempted to sign up early with info from a flyer from the security checkpoint at an airport. It may have been via my main airline. At that time, the deal was “Give us this information and we may or may not clear you, but only on some flights, and we won’t tell you if you’re in the program or not.” There was also no fee at the time. I think it was when they were trying to build the program.
[QUOTE=Digital is the new Analog]
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.
[/QUOTE]
I got the fast lane treatment the last time I flew out of SFO. It did seem like a “fast-track every tenth person to help everyone get through” kind of thing as the agent stepped up to me as the line was moving and pulled me aside. My initial reaction was “Oh crap! Time for a cavity search!” as the last time a TSA person said anything to me other than “Put your shoes in the bin” I got the full scrutiny.
It was nice, I must say. Drop my zipped-up laptop bag on the belt, walk through the metal detector and be on my way. Yes, it was an old-school magnetometer, rather than the new backscatter / millimeter wave / whatever mantrap where you stand on the footprints and the thing whirls around you.
This all happened before anyone looked at my boarding pass, so they had no opportunity to look up my name and PNR and know anthing about this road-weary bearded guy dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. The agent who pulled me out of line did look at my boarding pass briefly, probably to confirm I wasn’t SSSS.
I flew from Key West to SanDiego via Atlanta last month. I was selected for pre check ana I thought it was because I was using a military id. The pre check followed me on all flights including the return trip. I am not a frequent flyer.
About a year ago, I obtained a credit card that is affiliated with my most frequently used airline. Since then, I have been TSA pre-checked whenever I fly on that airline. I’m not really a frequent flier - I take 2 or 3 round trip flights a year. I’ll admit when I started seeing “Pre-Checked” on the boarding passes I was “How the *&%$ did this happen, I never applied for this” - but I can’t say I was complaining.
Next month I’ll be flying on a different airline for the first time since I got the credit card - I’m curious to see if I still get the pre-checked status,
Did anyone else read this as “pre check anal”?
I could tell a story here about me and my buddy Gil flying to Florida for a Blues Festival, but I shall refrain. The punchline is about how bummed he was when I was able to easily buy a bag at the fest, making his discomfort on the flight meaningless. Seriously.
It’s the TSA–isn’t that expected?
Went through the precheck side with the kid recently. We weren’t “pre-checked”, just waved through the “shoes on” lane that the prechecks go through. Total mixup though, because they really wanted to wave the kid through with my wife, but I was in effective control of the kid, and I’m half deaf.