Boggie Dog

WTMD and random ETD, unresolved alarm WBI, unresolved alarm Patdown.

chollie

Back to the thread topic:

Some of us still aren't going to pay for Pre when we regularly fly in and out of airports/terminals where Pre is never offered (many smaller airports) or where Pre isn't reliably offered - variable hours or hours that don't coincide with flight times.

If your home airport does not offer Pre, then the value of your Pre membership has just been halved.

The product has to be consistent and reliable for more people for it to reach the enrollment TSA wants.

petaluma1

However, that presupposes that the WBI doesn't alarm on sweat, fat, pleats, lint, etc.

Uzzar

My home airport is a small regional that does not have Pre-check. However, I get an "expidited card" that allows me to go through the crew metal detector with my shoes / belt on instead of the microwave scanner. To me, it is worth it!

Boggie Dog

At least my screening escalation matrix doesn't put TSA's flawed Whole Body Imager as the first hurdle.

Until TSA develops the maturity to understand that alarms on non-threat items are false alarms the public will see little improvement in screening methods. The same comment can be applied equally to the ETD machines. I don't really expect front line screeners to understand these things but would expect senior TSA staffers to grasp this concept. But in my opinion TSA has been a major disappointment on every level so TSA's failures are no surprise.

UAPremExecflyer

Not to take this thread off-topic, but if you are saying the GE machines are not regularly reading your GC (Green Card), there's a pretty simple fix: just choose "unable to read document" button and you can manually enter your PR number ... then machine recognizes you and takes your fingerprints and off you go ... maybe takes an extra 30 seconds total.

cmx

I flew out of SAN about 50 times last year, and with the exception of the 1, 1a, 2 Southwest gates, have always received full pre-check. I think OP had a weird one-off.

miuk

That's extremely weird since the back of the GC is just plain text. Mine scans in like a few seconds but i do tend to put the card right in the middle of the scanner rather than all the way to the back/front.

Tough luck, i've heard replacing the card is a super painful process and expensive to boot.

Boggie Dog

The use of canines by TSA is not new. Dog sniffs for explosives, WTMD looks for metallics. The big problem is the number of dogs required for full time screening. I don't think the pipeline would ever meet TSA's needs.

chollie

Yesterday I flew out of SEA.

Regular TSA lane, Clear lane and Pre lane.

Clear pax were taken to the podium and 'bumped' ahead of the 'Pre' pax - and everyone I saw from where I was in the regular lane was sent through the Pre xray/WMD.

I thought Clear and Pre were two separate programs and Clear did not guarantee the Pre experience. From what I saw, unlike the old elite line set-up in the south end of the terminal, there's no obvious way to funnel a non-Pre Clear person through the xray/WMD without ducking under barriers.

Explorer789

Depends on the airport I guess. Some have Clear converge into the Pre line, others have the Clear line jumping only normal TSA queue and using the non-Pre scanners. Either way, having Pre is going to offer the most consistent experience.

Boggie Dog

Nothing guarantees the Pre experience.

CKDGM

I suspect that almost all CLEAR participants are also NEXUS, Global Entry, or TSA Pre members since those are all cheaper (except for DL DMs) and useful at more airports than CLEAR.

IME the CLEAR boarding pass scanners check for the Pre signature in the bar code, and the agent will say "verified Pre" (possibly having me also show the Pre indicator) to the TSA doc checkers; CLEAR definitely doesn't guarantee Pre access.

At SEA checkpoint 2 (the one I usually use), I'm pretty sure there's a feed around to the non-Pre side from the CLEAR lane. The CLEAR staff will open the barriers if needed to get to either the Pre or non-Pre checkpoints.

TWA884

Several posts about the TSA use of dogs for screening passengers and which did not discuss the reasons for or against paying for TSA PreCheck were moved to the following thread.
TWA884
Travel Safety/Security co-moderator

Aussienarelle

Same issue again at SAN today. Dogs in use so everyone had TSA-pre AND lines were long for every single line and no one knew how to go through. No dedicated line for true TSA-pre customers, i.e. those of us who have paid for it, and no line for First class/Priority. And my GE did not work last week and I manually input the GC number and it did not take. Yep, pretty certain that I will not be paying for this farce of a system again. I do have the UK Registered Traveler program and I get straight through immigration in the UK - easy process, cheaper than the US GE system and it works for this non-UK citizen.

So when they wonder why less people choose GE/TSA-pre they will only have themselves to blame. Make it free to everyone and have an INS entry system that does not work - why would I pay for this again??