I was in the USA last week, with colleague. He is QF bronze whilst I have attained QF gold / OW platinum. Trips were syd/lax/ord/lax/las/lax/syd.
Each time at lax, we moved to the escalator together, with self in front holding both BPs, mine on top showing PLATINUM in bold. We were allowed to go up the escalator with instruction to keep for each of us, the BP and ID together.
In ord, the BP has SSSS on it for me alone. When we went in the queue, we were led to the front of the line and promptly put through the security drill. In effect, we bypassed around 300 pax. I didnt at all mind the checks and wondered if I should remind check-in agent to put the SSSS on rest of the sectors...never asked though.
Whatever SSSS means, it certainly speeds one through the security check processes.
One advice for all travellers is to check-in up to 2.5hrs before flights. There is peace of mind in being at the airport early.
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Originally Posted by NM
I have never had to wait more than about 10 mins in the security queue at T4.
Note that the priority queue is not necessarily faster and is not completely separate from the general queue. It just allows you to enter the queue at the point it has reached at the top of the escalator. So when it is very busy you may be entering the queue at the halfway point. But in practice, the people entering from the priority queue tend to turn hard left and use the right hand side machines, while the people entering from the non-priority queue swarm to the left machines.
You don't want the queue on the extreme right - that's the one for those with SSSSS on their boarding passes! And this trip I did not get on secondary screening experience. So I am either looking less threatening or did something in the booking process to appear less suspicious.