Originally Posted by PushingTin

Flying BRU-ORD. Check in on-line with the app. Get the green “ Travel Ready” button. Cool. Go to airport, clear security. Go to de-immigration control and get my passport stamped. Cool. Find the lounges, and chill out until about 15 min before the flight, pre-boarding 1K and lounges go great together. Walk up to the pre-board entrance with my pass port and BP on my app- and they ask where my ‘sticker’ is. I give them a quizzical look? What sticker?

“The sticker on your passport, oh then you need to get in that 40 person line down there and get a sticker..”. (Here is where it was kind of weird, because it seems that the ‘sticker checker’ might have been able to let me through, but the UA person and the sticker Nazi both kind of chuckled and said “Naaaahhhh.”.).

We are boarding, the sticker line is loooong. I pull a DYKWIA and walk right up to the sticker guy and ask where the premier access is. I have no idea if there is, but I’m going to miss my flight if I have to wait in the whole line. The dude asks me how long I was there, what I was doing- two follow-up questions. Get my sticker and I’m back to the gate. PB line is closed, and the GA tells me back of the BG1 line. I tell her that ain’t happening. LSS, I never saw the end of the BG1 line.

I’m pretty hot, but coming down since I’m set to board and it all worked out. Ask the couple in front of me about their sticker experience. They say that they got theirs at check-in since they had bags. It looked like to me and the other pre-boarder that ended up having to get a sticker had just carry ons.

I cleared out-bound immigration where they stamp your passport. I would have thought that and the Travel ready was all I needed. In retrospect I wondered if I just needed to show them my passport stamp- did they think that I was non-shengghen and you need the stamp for transfers- but the couple that had checked in had a sticker and the originated in BRU.

I’m not a globetrotter, but not my first rodeo. I have stickers all over my old passport. I’ve never anywhere had to seek out a ‘sticker’ dude to get out? Sure, you get a sticker, but it is part of the process and you usually can’t proceed with out it.

Anyone have any insights on why BRU almost ended up being a fiasco for me?