Wondering: how many others here have jumped through ridiculous hoops to avoid having to book a one-way ticket that dooms you to SSSS torture? I just spent almost an hour on the phone with a reservations agent trying to make up a complicated trip arrangement without having to book any one-ways.

I fly between home and work weekly. It makes perfect sense for me to book one-ways once in a while. I might be taking a car between my commute cities, or I might not have decided yet on a return date but want to lock in a low fare for the outbound. Why does TSA want to discourage me from flying one-ways? I'm not buying any of this bunk about terrorism: the bad guys are smart enough to figure out that one-way tickets are flagged.

The TSA claims that airlines decide who is flagged. Is that true? Are there airlines that don't flag one-way tix for SSSS? AirTran definitely does.

No, it's not true.

Do a search on SSSS

Here's my favorite:

http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttr...ML/000396.html

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"Give me Liberty or give me Death." - Patrick Henry

GradGirl, isn't it a bit counterproductive to spend an hour trying to avoid a 5 minute check?

I buy most of my tickets in Tel Aviv, which automatically gets me SSSSed (it never happens when I buy them in the States).

I will admit that I don't like it, but it isn't a torture -- merely an annoyance.



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Sir Dovster, OBE
(Omni Boycotter Extraordinaire)

The CAPPS System is actually run on the Air Carriers reservation system with the input for the system being taken over by the TSA from the FAA. So technically the Air Carriers are selecting selectees based on certain criteria.

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{Everyone has a right to an opinion no matter how wrong they may be}

And any carrier who chooses to select no one will be forced at gunpoint (figuratively speaking) to select some people by the TSA. So, no, the carriers do not select the passengers.

That's like telling someone to choose three people that you're going to shoot, and they cannot refuse or you will shoot them instead. When they finally choose three people whom you shoot, you turn around and claim that the person doing the choosing picked those who would die and it's not your fault.


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"Give me Liberty or give me Death." - Patrick Henry

Interestingly, a one way ticket will not always get you the SSSS. In December I was in Albany during a snow storm. I was scheduled out of EWR, but there was no way I was getting down the highway to make my flight which was cancelled anyway. So into the ALB airport and to the NW counter. FLight to MSP was cancelled already, so they booked me on the flight the next morning. AA still had a flight going out that would get me back to MSP. NW tried to Rule 240 me over to AA, but couldn't figure out how to do it b/c my original airport was EWR. Realizing that if I wanted to make the flight out I just needed to buy a one-way on AA and sort out the rest later.

Bought the ticket on AA, one way, paid with my amex, had a boarding pass handed to me without the SSSS. I admit I was expecting the SSSS, but it wasn't there. I don't know why it didn't show up. I hadn't flown AA in over 15 years, and had no other association with them. But obviously there are other triggers in the system besides the one-way that cause the SSSS. It may be that the one-way gives you enough "points" that a single other factor will cause you to be SSSS. But who knows what it takes.

Although I miss many people and things from my few years in the US, SSSS is not one of them. Thankfully in Australia we haven't gone down that path. They just do some selective profiling (it seems to me) at the security checkpoint and they are so much better to deal with than the TSA.

I think a lot of us don't see it as a "time" issue. We see it as a harassment, intrusion, privacy, and civil liberties issue. In my opinion, the time GradGirl spent in order to beat a useless system was well worth it.

I buy a lot of one way tickets and am never SSSS because of it.

But you are still an accomplice to the crime.

For the ones that think it is not a "time" issue, how about this then...

1) Take a bus (which takes longer, but time isn't an issue...)

2) And then we fellow Americans (TSA) won't have to harass you or intrude on your privacy...