zerolife

I have PreCheck but will be traveling with a friend who does NOT have it. Our origin airport has the PreCheck line right next to the regular security line. So I was wondering:

Could I line up with my friend at the regular line and when I get to the boarding pass / ID check, I'll probably get the three beeps and then ask the TSA agent if I can go through the PreCheck security checkpoint.

Ocn Vw 1K

Please follow the discussion as the thread moves to the apt travel security forum. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator, TravelBuzz.

Sykes

I did this at SFO on Tuesday, but YMMV.

dustman81

Likely, you can do the opposite. You both go the Pre lane, you get the 3 beeps and go though the Pre line and he gets 1 beep and cuts into the regular line.

Saw it happen at CLE. Man and woman were ahead of me in the Pre line. He got the 3 beeps, she got 1 beep. The TDC opened the rope and let her cut into the regular line.

Ari

It really depends on the airport setup and if there is the possibility to cut over. At ORD, because the PreCheck line merges with the GS line before the TSA TDC, there are some people in the merged line that don't have PreCheck. There is a funnel for those people to the front of the regular screening line.

The contract line guard at ORD just scans boarding passes at the entrance and listens for 3 beeps; she doesn't look at boarding passes in detail. When traveling with a non-PreCheck person from ORD, one can just print oneself an extra boarding pass and give it to the companion to use with the contract employee since the contract employee doesn't look at the boarding pass much less check ID's. The companion then uses his own boarding pass at the TSA podium and uses the funnel to regular screening bypassing the generic PremierAccess line.

But at another airport like DCA, this won't work because there is really no funnel from the PreCheck line to the regular line and no non-PreCheck travelers end up in the PreCheck line unlike those who come from the ORD GS lobby who are a mix of PreCheck and non-PreCheck. So TSA would wonder how the companion got there and there could be an issue.

zerolife

thanks for the advise. I'm sure there are people that does it but it sounds like cheating to me.

exerda

Meh, before my wife had GE and thus didn't score PreCheck frequently (she's a 3-4x a year flyer and thus the airline opt-in alone was yielding at best 50%), we both went to the PreCheck line at several airports. Seems silly for her, traveling with me, to have had to go to a completely different checkpoint. It does depend on the airport; IAD and MCO, for example (two places we did this) send pax into a second line nearby if they don't get the 3 beeps, so it's not like they're slowing down the actual PreCheck pax.