Is Global Entry worthwhile?

My understanding is no, you can use the crew line where the kiosks are already there, but are inop.

Damn, this is my punishment for not reading FT more often!!! I applied for NEXUS & GE at the same time was was charged $150. Had I read FT I would've done Nexus first and save myself $100!

My GE is approved and I'm flying down Thursday for my interview/enrollment. Waiting for NEXUS approval.

I advised my friend to do the same but the Canadians rejected him because he ended up with a hostile interviewer and made a mistake answering one question. So he's back to applying for GE alone. The US CBP agent cleared him at the Nexus interview so he's not anticipating any problems.

If your time is worth more than $50 to you, applying for GE alone may save you some hassle.

Applied about 1 week ago, got my "conditional approval" today and have an "interview" with CBP tomorrow at ORD.

Hope this thing is as simple and helpful as IRIS is in the UK!!

Dave

Interview took 20 minutes or so, with a couple of simple questions about travel patterns. I had the sense that it was mostly just conversational. Letter arrived in email today: I'm in.

Seems like the process would be difficult to streamline much more than this.

Good work so far CBP!
Dave

Had my interview yesterday at IAD. Worked like a charm and the questions are very conversational about travel pattern and addresses in the US.
I have a German passport with a permanent resident card.

Looking forward to escape the IAD zoo in the future, just not sure how it is supposed to work in the mid field terminal immigration if they back you up at the escalators and don't even let you go downstairs. Had this a couple times last summer and it is always a complete circus.

Also does anybody happen to know when SFO opens ?

We had our interviews last Friday. Went very smoothly, also random questions about travel patterns, and specifically asked about Canada and Mexico since they weren't on my list as I haven't happened to travel to either in the past few years. Got fingerprinted, got to play with the test machine, and we were out of there, also in about 20 minutes. When I joked about the electronic fingerprinting process and asked about the ink pad routine, the guy handed me a magic marker and said "go crazy if you want". I suspect they get this a lot.

I'm confused about your "email letter" since I've never gotten anything emailed to me, but the online system shows we're both completed.

All pretty painless, and it seemed like they chose the interviewers for their people skills.

The fun part was getting the very stern warning about how if we're caught lying even once we'll be bounced out of the program.

You're right it wasn't an "emailed letter", it was an email alerting me to the "final approval".

Dave

Applied last night for the GE program and excited to use it. Will update my experiences later.

When you go for your interview you should ask the officer when SFO will come online...Thanks

I'm going for the interview tomorrow so I'll try to remember to ask. This was a fairly quick turnaround process compared to other checks I've had to do with the airline....interesting.

I'm hopeful that your guy will know more than my interviewer. My guy was truly very nice and all, but I asked about SFO and he said "soon" but I am guessing the folks doing the interviewing just aren't "in the loop" w/r/t those sorts of things.

Good luck!
Dave

Weird. When scheduling my interview the dropdown had a number of other locations. I scheduled my interview for Seattle - Enrollment Center: Seattle Urban Enrollment Center, Address: 7277 PERIMETER ROAD SOUTH RM 116 KING COUNTY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, BOEING FIELD, SEATTLE, WA, 98108

Did I do something wrong?

You should be fine if it was listed as it is a NEXUS enrollment center.

I'm really upset after paying and filling out the form, I cannot schedule an interview on weekends in MIA. Anyone gotten around this? It's highly misleading since the site lists the MIA hours as Monday-Sunday, yet the form clearly blocks out MIA airport on weekends. This means I will not be able to schedule my appointment at all.