Originally Posted by
footprints
Question about this...
I am a Nexus card holder and recently applied and was approved for Global Entry (online at GOES, took all of 30 minutes to get approved, no further paperwork or interview required). This morning I looked into the Privium/FLUX thing and it appears that in order for me to get a Privium card that I'd have to pay literally hundreds of Euros to sign up and a couple of hundred Euros per year to maintain my membership. If Germany is the next country to join FLUX, am I to assume that I'd have to pay hundreds of Euros for their program as well? Seems like a cost model that could quickly require many hundreds of Euros per year to have FLUX access to all of the EU countries that I visit regularly.
I don't know how the German system will work, but I can say for the Dutch one (Privium), it's a bit of a let down. The set-up is all a piece of cake. The issue is that when you go through the Privium entrance/exit, if you have a US passport, it is designed to automatically send you to the immigration officer every time since you need a stamp in your passport. Unfortunately, that is the same protocol as it uses for someone who fails the iris scan for example. In my limited experience, it almost feels like you get
more scrutiny as a result (or at the least, you feel like you get the big "X" every time you go through). It does allow you to cut to the front of the line for sure, but the whole screening, iris scan, etc. seems to be a big exercise with out much purpose since you still go to an officer every single time by design. And it ain't cheap - currently €115/yr.
I hope the German system will be better. They need to find a way around the passport stamp issue.