I read in another thread that TSA may assign Precheck randomly to passengers who haven't enrolled in the Precheck program. However, I had a recent experience while traveling with family members where I still can't believe it's "random," and I'm curious if there's another explanation.

The 3 of them travel infrequently (1-2 flights per year), but all 3 had Precheck on their boarding passes on both an AS flight and a WN flight. They've never enrolled in Precheck or Global Entry and have no idea how they got it. They also said it wasn't the first time it had happened!

I never enrolled in it and when I went to LA I got it but not on the way back

Some people are determined to be low risk by various variables and the TSA computer may granted PreCheck more often to those people than to others. Age, travel patterns, ect ect determine the risk assessment. I've also noticed people/spouses that book tickets together with someone that is PreCheck or a member of a Trusted Traveler Program will have a higher than normal chance of getting PreCheck. They still have to be determined to a low risk traveler but i've noticed this correlation.

Add in wanting to have more people sign up for PreCheck is a good motivator to give these kinds of people a taste and then take it away once or twice.

I know some people with non-US citizenship/residence who've gotten PreCheck LLL dozens of times in a row in recent years despite never enrolling in any sort of trusted traveler program and despite never having had airline elite status. Amusingly, some of these same persons used to be oflagged down with haraSSSSment boarding passes.

When PreCheck started, it was rolled out only to a few airlines' elite passengers. I got an e-mail from, I'm fairly sure it was, AA asking me to provide some information if I was interested. I did, and that was that. My wife has also gotten it when traveling with me, without doing even that much. I don't think she's taken any flights without me since then, so I can't say if she really has it on her own.

If there is a pattern at all it is that "low risk" (without getting into an entire debate about who is "low risk") people get a free taste and then can't live without it so they sign up.

If you consider that Global Entry (which is only $15 more than Pre-Check and is vastly more useful because it moves you through CBP) costs $100 for 5 years, that works out to $20/year. If you fly 4 times/year (in other words, passing through a checkpoint), that works out to $5 to cut the line. If you are a regular flier, the cost drops all the more.

A regular flier who flies a round-trip per week 48 weeks per year pays roughly $0.42 per use for Pre-Check.

Consider this like the free sample/taste that you get on your grocery store or membership club (Sam's, Costco, ...) You try it, you like it, you buy it. There is no publicly known data on how to determine who gets it or not, hence the randomness of its nature. Its just a "freebie" to get you hooked.

Personally, and this is my own opinion, with the state of affairs on the government, TSA, lack of funds, etc etc, they are trying to drive up the enrollment numbers and get more people to sign up for it. All you need to do is look at the news stories about 2 months or so ago regarding long TSA lines at the airport with waiting times of 2-3 hours just to get through security. More reason to sign up and participate on the program.

There indeed is a pattern of spouses or dependents with a frequent travel history with a DHS program member having much increased chances of getting PreCheck without enrolling in DHS paid membership programs.

I'm Global Entry/TSA Pre-Check so when I purchase tickets on AA, the people traveling with me also get Pre-Check. But to be honest, TSA can do whatever they want. My girlfriend is a Chinese national and a TSA agent randomly selected her to go through pre-check at DFW when she was flying be herself on her own ticket.

Granted this may be giving too much credit to the thought that the TSA could plan everything, but I suspect there's a certain amount of attempt to load balance security lines. I'm stupidly low risk. I never get random free precheck ay my local one line podunk airport where probably 75% of the folks have it. (Apparently you can get it comped if you've got a DoD ID, and it's a military town and all) I'll get it about 50-60% of the time coming back home, typically when the departure airport is having issues moving people through lines in a timely manner- think Seattle this spring or Boston the day after the marathon.