Don't forget to get proof of secondary screening!
 

(I'm sure that most of you already know this … but just in case …)

I just found out this afternoon that if you get new seats at the worldclub, you have to be SURE that your new boarding passes are stamped/marked/initiated/SOMETHING so as to indicate that you have already gone through your TSA secondary screening. Otherwise, during BOARDING, the gate agents can require you to go BACK through security (which will, of course, necessitate you missing your flight).

(This ALMOST happened to me today. I was at the airport three hours early with my preschooler; we were required to go through secondary screening and we did; we checked into the worldclub and they graciously gave us (much) better seats and new boarding passes; and three hours later, we went to board. BUT THEN, when they scanned our boarding passes, the gate agent pulled us out of line and in a not-very-friendly-pretty-much-yelling-at-us-tone said, "HOW did you get to the gate? Did you go through SECURITY?" ("Of course," I replied.) "Did you go through SCREENING?" ("Absolutely. Of course.")

"Well, I need PROOF that you went through security!" ("Excuse me?")
"WHERE did you get these boarding passes?" ("At the club.")
"OUR club?" ("Yes, of course.")
"This says that you have to go through SECONDARY SCREENING!" ("Yes, m'am. And we did. Every inch of our bags were searched.")
"I need PROOF of this!" ("????")

Finally, they made a bunch of calls while my daughter and I stood to the side hoping that we would actually get to be home tonight.
And we are.

But a word to the wise -- don't forget to get proof of secondary screening if you get new seats/boarding passes at the worldclub!

Ssss?
 

I think your post is rather confusing. I believe you're saying that if your boarding pass is marked "SSSS" that it needs to be indicated on your new boarding pass, if you're upgraded at the WC.

Sorry to be confusing.

We weren't upgraded. We just had different seats assigned to us by the worldclub agents.

And apparently our NEW boarding passes did not have any sort of stamps/initials/whatever to indicate that we HAD gone through the secondary screening (as required by our SSSSSS notation on our boarding pass).

(The gate agent said that the worldclub agent just made a mistake--and I only posted this because I didn't want someone else to miss a flight due to a similar mistake in the future.)

What airport were you at? I've never had that happen (and I've definitely been issued new BP's at the WC. What about connecting passengers? When I fly from say DCA-DTW-SAN for example, I get my BP for DCA-DTW checked at DCA, but my DTW-SAN BP's doesn't get written on at all. Most of the airports that have WC's inside of security are also airports one can connect through. IMHO, that was a really crappy gate agent & I would definitely bring it up with NW management as its not your fault & I (personally) don't think the GA was doing her job correctly.

This kind of makes sense. If a boarding pass has SSSS on it, TSA is supposed to make a notation on it that you have been screened.

So, it stands to reason that if the WC issues you a new boarding pass on it, which still contains the SSSS, then you will be presenting an SSSS boarding pass at the gate without the TSA notation that you have been screened.

I'm not quite sure what the WC can do in this situation. Don't know if they can issue you a BP without the SSSS, they probably can't override. And, if they give you a new BP with the SSSS, there probably is no notation that they can make that would be allowed (they are not TSA.)

Now, in a logical world, they should issue you a new BP with the SSSS, and you should be able to retain your old BPs with the TSA notation showing you were screened, and this should be accepted at the gate as proff of screening. However, given that we are talking TSA here which is part of the Bizarro world and not the logical world, this might not work.

Is getting the SSSSS random?

Even with SSSS, they never check the connecting boarding passes as alluded to by bhatnasx. The GA was simply uncooperative and uninformed. Thanks for the post. I, too, would like to know the airport. I've never had this happen to me and you should definitely report it.

Generally speaking, no. There are certain things that tip off the SSSS, such as tickets paid for in cash, one-way tickets w/out a FF #, or tickets purchased very close to departure (or a non-standby change of your ticket that gets reissued close to departure).

Actually, the agent boarding the flight was doing their job correctly. We are required to verify that a selectee has completed the secondary screening process prior to boarding them on a flight. The TSA has a special stamp or hole-punch to indicate such on a boarding pass, if that doesn't exist on a boarding pass, we are required to send the customer back for screening, which, can cause a person to miss his/her flight.

So then what happens with seat assignment changes with a new BP card?

The GA is following procedure, stupid as the procedure is.

A new BP for the same flight doesn't necessarily (or generally) spit out a BP with haraSSSSment selection.

Also, an agent issuing a boarding pass airside that pops up with haraSSSSment selection can remove it manually and reissue the boarding pass again. [A landside agent can remove it too, if they know what they are doing.]

One of the more unusual ones encountered is when a person is not a haraSSSS-ment selectee on their first (one or two) boarding pass but is on their second or third (connecting) flight boarding pass on the same itinerary. (This is a more recent tweak.) In the case of NW/CO connections at EWR this is at least partially "fixed" (i.e., programming-wise made permanent) into the engine to come out as such more often. Is that because of terminal change there?

Overriding haraSSSSment selection is possible.

In a logical world, haraSSSSment selection would be scrapped at airports because it's a process full of holes. 1) It wastes resources; and 2) it is easily circumvented even if in some fantasy world the "secondary screening" was actually effective (which it isn't).

Do most gate agents know, even as they are required to be complicit in this TSA show, that this gate check procedure is a waste that does nothing for flight security and is easily circumvented, right?

IIRC, those on "connecting" boarding passes were to be exempted initially; but since the right hand doesn't know what the left hand's doing, one of the hands advocated on behalf of including "connecting" flight passengers under some particular circumstances while the other hand said "connecting" flight passengers should be exempted generally.

Whether they think it's stupid or not, it's their job under the current guidelines. You don't sign their paychecks, nor do I....so I'll refrain from telling them what I think is dumb or not about their jobs. You must be a gate agents worst nightmare.

Is that an answer to my question? No.

Cute attempt at a a personal attack that won't stick. ;) Just because you don't like my question doesn't, claim as you may, make me a gate agent's worst nightmare.

Do most NW gate agents know, even as they are required to be complicit in this TSA show, that this gate check procedure is a waste that does nothing for flight security and is easily circumvented? A good number default to the near-equivalent action of ignoring the mark of the TSA (including its absence). Is that an indication that those gate agents who think about this realize what a waste the measure is and decide to engage in the near-equivalent of ignoring the TSA's mark (or its absence)? Hard tot tell, but that's why the question was asked. ;)

Does not EVERYONE on flyertalk know that if you get a boarding pass that says SSSSSS, all you need to do is reprint it at a kiosk and the SSSSSS goes away?????

I guess it is possible that someone would not check his/her boarding pass for this annoyance and take the appropriate corretive action. My wife and I always carefully scrutinize ours.

C'mon, the TSA is stupid, but not that stupid.

The only time I have ever received boarding passes with SSSSS have been at kiosks, as they won't print online (because then all you would have to do would be to use the technique of your choice to get rid of the SSSS from the home-printed boarding pass.)

The TSA is so brilliant that people can use "the technique of your choice" -- or, more likely, someone else's -- "to get rid of the SSSS from the home-printed boarding pass" or achieve an indistinguishable result.

My understanding is that if you are an SSSSS you can't do OLCI - has anyone ever printed a boarding pass at home when they were SSSSS?

A haraSSSSment selectee is not supposed to be able to do OLCI-PYOBP, idiotic as that "barrier" is since it's a flag to someone that they are likely flagged and is consequently largely self-defeating as a procedure.

In any event, you may still be able to buy a refundable ticket on another carrier print out a boarding pass, get airside and then get the airline agent to print out a boarding pass for you.

Alternatively buying another ticket on the same flight in someone else's name -- for example, let's say Michael Chertoff or Kip Hawley's name -- check in online and print one boarding as is and print another with an "alteration" to have the name match the name on the ID. Clear the security checkpoint with the "alteration" and once airside travel as, say, Michael Chertoff or Kip Hawley.

This works for domestic flights.

DHS/TSA, geniuses, right? Or, "Michael Chertoff/Kip Hawley is an idiot"? You decide.

>>>Is getting the SSSS random?

This happened to me too in ABQ last April when I did not go through SSSS secondary screening despite having SSSS on my boarding pass (the first agent to view the boarding pass did not observe it and did not send me to the appropriate lane). I was flying DL and boarded when elites were called, and the agent said I had to go through security again because it wasn't stamped to confirm that I had gone through extra security, so I ran like hell out of the security area, went through security again all sweaty-like, and made it back to the boarding area as the last passenger to board. The agent knew that I was running the gauntlet, so that was certainly helpful. I probably got the SSSS at kiosk check-in at ABQ because this was my first Delta travel....um...like, ever (except for an AA bump at BNA 15 years ago when they protected me first class on DL!). Hopefully it is also the last time.