Originally Posted by
FlyingHoustonian
Not in my experiances. Often times the booths nearby are unmanned. This happend at Dulles, Intercontinental, Miami, and Newark to me just in the last 5 weeks of int'l flights.
Also, the few time I get x'd now I go straight to the front of the line, wave the receipt and my CBP sticker and get next-up privies. I have been told the protocol is to go to the front each time. My US CBP contacts say the same thing.
one point of GE is to avoid lines.
Ciao,
FH
To add to this, on my last usage of GE at IAD there was no open booth near the kiosks and I got an X. I was told by a passing by CBP officer to go to the front of the Crew lane and "They'll want to kill you, but you paid for it."
Indeed the FAs from my flight (including the one that asked if I was crew when I was walking towards the GE kiosk, inside the Crew lane, and looked at me like I was crazy when I told him about GE) were not amused that I got to walk past them all. Waved my X receipt to the officer and he waved me forward, didn't even mention the 30+ crew that I walked by.