To return to the OP's question, I have often used the "wrong" elite card for the security line. The only time I had a problem was using a NW card for a COPA flight out of Managua.

Your brother is wrong. The lines are generally (and in the vast majority of places) not operated by the government but by the airlines or the airport authority (as someone else pointed out, often a company set up to manage the airport commercially).

The lines then are just like those at the Starbucks at the airport. If Starbucks wants to give some customers a special line, they're welcome to and in no way violating civil rights.

I also don't understand why anyone would care that elite fliers have special lines. Getting rid of them won't make Ma and Pa Kettle's once-yearly experience with security significantly more brief, and why begrudge the folks who have to fly dozens to hundreds of times a year the ability to get through more quickly?

I was not aware that Starbucks was a government mandated "service". I don't know if elite lines are violations of civil rights, but there is something disturbing about a private company controlling access to government mandated screening, a screeing that every pax, regardless of status or fare, paid the same amount for.

Saying that the speed of a service (the length of the lines) is not part of the service does not make sense to me. If the wait for screening is two hours, who do you blame: the TSA, not the airlines or the airport authority.

This may not be a perfect analogy, but: What if the DMVs (car/driver agency) in your state leased office space from car dealerships, and only BMW drivers could use elite lines for services. Everyone else had to wait on the regular lines. Would this would be okay, since the lines are not "operated" by the DMV and they would feed to the same service counters? I think non-BMW drivers would disagree.

BTW: I am elite and yes, I do use elite lines. What gets me is the amount of venom some elites use when defending elite lines (not talking about user exerda here).

Actually, the bit about "paid the same amount" is not entirely true. Frequent fliers pay a ton more in terms of the "9/11 fee" than once-a-year fliers. And connecting fliers pay more than direct-flight pax even though they go through security the same # of times, regardless of how often they fly.

Somewhat similarly, you can e-file your taxes with the IRS for a fee, or file them via the mail and paper forms for free. One method gets you your refund much more quickly than the other, for those willing to pay for it.


And you'd be right to blame the TSA, because they are the ones who control the actual screening and thus how long it takes pax to get through it. Do a better job at catching real threats to security and ignoring idiotic things like water bottles, lip balm, lighters, pocket knives, etc., and they'd probably move everyone through a lot faster. (I'm not claiming the elites don't get through security more quickly in most cases, but that the TSA could have a much higher impact on transit times than any amount of line wrangling).



They could always go to the dealership they bought their car from, who presumably would offer elite lines for their customers. @:-) :p

Um, freq. fliers pay the same "Sept. 11 fee" (what a terrible name, are we paying for that day?) per flight as everyone else. If you want to give a volume discount for that, then it should be based on the # of flights/year, not status on an airline.

How does this differentiate between freq. and infrequent fliers? Also, direct can be connecting. Any elite flier would know that ;)

The e-filing thing is actually both a gov't handout to the tax prep. industry and an attempt at a subsidy for lower income taxpayers (free filing for low income people).

Technically, yes. TSA cannot have a dedicated screening lane (using dedicated screeners and equipment) for elites. However, how the passengers are delivered to the TSA screening checkpoint is part of the airlines' responsibility. Hence, that's why elites and the regulars are end up together.

I agree.

- Pat

No problems at RDU with using the elite line with a UA 1K card, even though the sign has an AA logo on it.

The goons checkin passes do check for elite status and/or first class, but that's as far as it goes.

I've accidentally used my CO elite card at MIA and SJU with no problems

In the past, the TSAers at ORD expressed hostility to the notion that the airlines can restrict who goes into what line. As a result, the airlines weren't pushing the issue. It sounds like nothing has changed, which is fine with me.

For any given day of travel, a frequent flier has contributed much more to the security fees than an infrequent one. Status on a given airline is an approximation showing heavy travel; granted, you could conceivably spread your travel our such that you have many flights but status on not a single airline, but in the majority of cases, status = many flights = more aggregate 9/11 fee than infrequent fliers. We could argue back and forth on per-flight vs. aggregate spending, I'm sure.



It doesn't differentiate, but it does point out that not everyone pays the same, even when looking at a single trip through security. Some pax pay more due to having more than one segment per leg of the trip.

As far as direct vs. connecting, I'm not entirely sure, but I suspect that when you book a "direct" flight with stops (i.e. one flight # for all operated flights on the leg), you only get billed the 9/11 fee once. I'm just guessing on that, though. But obviously what I meant was "non-stop." :p

This is common practice at ORD. In fact, this line is used ALL the time when the other is full. TSA telling people to use the line, there is a TSA agent that is the normal one who checks the tickets and he is so slow, takes like 2 minutes per passanger. Even with this, I use the Elite line cause the "norm" paxs know the procesdure and this makes the line move faster. You can spot the "first class, no elites" and "im too dumb to read" paxs easy as they hold up the line

I don't understand that statement. Get rid of the "For any given day of travel" and it makes sense, but as written? Unless you're talking about people taking multiple trips per day, the $/day is the same for frequent vs. infrequent fliers.

Nope. Direct flights with two legs get billed twice for the 11th day of the 9th month. I think it's maxed out at $5 per flight, regardless of the # of stops. This applies regardless of whether or not the flight is "direct". The gov't doesn't seem to care about the airlines' misleading "direct" flights; every takeoff/landing pair is treated the same (I guess tech stops are not included).

PDX is an odd duck. The elite line has a sign that shows various carrier's gold and platinum cards, plus the standard SW RR card. Works for me.

Since when are non-elite fliers a "protected class"? (Protected from discrimination, that is.) I presume that in some states they could make gay people wait in a separate (slower) line and it would be perfectly legal...