Twice we've arrived in the USA under GE and made it through security with minimal fuss. In fact, on our recent arrival at LAX we were waved through without even showing our passports with the attendant greeting me, "Welcome, Robert!" I presume there is some ultra fast face recognition security going on.

This makes the problems we've had with GE leaving the USA even more difficult to understand.

Each time we've joined the GE lane at security, the passport reader has denied us and we've been asked to joint the regular queue. This wasn't an issue at ATL a few months ago as the queue was short. However, the queue to clear LAX departures security was much longer. I queried this with the border security officer who said that the check-in desk should add our GE number when we check in. So back we walked to check-in and explained the situation and they apologised and advised that there's usually a pop-up to advise them to add our GE membership number but it doesn't always work. So after a few minutes of typing and a walk back to the GE lane we were let through and walked through the new scanners without the usual rigmarole of having to remove just about everything.

But, my question is, shouldn't GE be linked to the passport already? After all, we made it in to the USA using GE without having to add our details at check in.

Or do we have to present our GE number at check-in every time we are flying home?