Kiwi Flyer

I've lost count of how many SSSSes but its quite a few. Needless to say never an SSSS when leaving the US of A on a non US-based airline. SSSS comes up on domestic and international flights leaving from US with a certain pattern of airline vs FFP on the booking. Havent worked out the whole pattern but some combinations I now know to avoid

og

My posting in Number 5 (above) seems to confirm the "get friendly with the operating airline" theory. What DID give us the sh!ts was asking the check-in AAgent "why the SSSS?" and being told "its totally randon and out of our control" whilst asking the haraSSSSers they say "it's not us, the airline controls who who gets the SSSS".

turtlemichael

SSSSed at least once, and usually twice on every trip to the US involving internal flights since 2001. That would make it about 20 times. Mainly on AA but also once on UA and once on Cape Air, a tiny airline on a 6 seater flight from Provincetown to Boston 3 months ago.

I've had every explanation too. None make sense and I now put them in the category of "who knows". But now I just expect it and make sure my socks don't have holes.

Best was in Palm Springs in 2003 where the magic wand tested positive and prompted questions about whether I had been near a golf course. The answer was no and so for me it was off behind a screen, everything out of the suitcase and everything x rayed separately, including the toothpaste. I was stripped down to my underwear (clean) hence my practice now of having non-holey socks!

og

Golf course? I can understand why Goldflyer's FF card makes the wand go off, but golf? Could it be golf balls (and is that like tennis elbow?)?

Maybe there was so much heavy metal in the soil of the golf course that your shoes were the culpret?

GoldFlyer

Yes I've stopped wondering about the weird looks and furtive phone call when my FF card is entered by the Check-in agent.

Whilst some get SSSS or CIP on their BP I get NBM, which I assume is Nil By Mouth because the drink cart never comes near me.

turtlemichael

My understanding is that the fertilizer used on golf courses can also get used in making nastier things. When they could find it on nothing other than the outside of the luggage they suggested, which I happily accepted because it got me out of there, that maybe I had picked it up from the boot of my hire car. Palm Springs is a big place for golf and the car could have had a golf bag in it at some point.

Well, it sounded ok to me as I stood in my undies!

Spiff

Nitrates in fertilizer used on golf courses can cause the ETD (Electronic Trace Detection) machine to give a false positive for nitrate detection as nitrates (e.g. sodium nitrate, potassium nitrate, and the explosive used in the Oklahoma City bombing, amonium nitrate) are a key component of many explosive compounds.

HW

I can't recall a flight when I haven't had SSSS, and I've travelled on all possible combinations of FF/no FF, US airline/non US airline, credit card/travel agent, US resident/non US resident, transiting/not, short notice/months ahead, passport/driver's licence, kids/no kids. Maybe my surname is an English translation of a terrorist's surname.

You just get used to the routine, in fact in some airports at some times of the day an SSSS gets you through faster.

NM

I always use my QF FF number when flying AA in the USA. On my last two trips (both DONEx fares0 I have not seen a SSSS marking. But all my previous trips (all either DONEx or DCIR22 fares) showed SSSS on all AA sectors.

I thought this may have been due to the pre-purchase time before hitting the USA, but my last one was a DONE3 and only booked the day before arriving in the USA and no SSSS to be seen.

My last two trips were booked by a different TA. The new one used Sabre for reservations while the previous one used Galileo, so maybe tyhat had something to do with it????

drron

Fly internally on AA.When part of an international ticket with QF or JAL flight no. on codeshare-no search.When booked on AA site with AA ff number-searched.Worst was jfk-mco 18 months ago when bags were xrayed before checkin and I was searched,at security both myself and mrs drron searched then at the gate I was searched again.Obviously overweight greyhairs are a very suspicious bunch.

meloz

Negative

Spiff

Are you purchasing with a credit card that is billed to the same address as the one AA has associated with your AAdvantage number?

meloz

Spiff

My quoted experiences are all past history now.

To tell the you the truth I would have to do some in-house research to work out what addresses I gave for many loyalty programs.

Meloz

og

Maybe I've missed something, but if a Passport number was included in the PNR, wouldn't much of this paranoia about SSSS (or at least passenger name screening) be a thing of the past?

QF WP

And here I thought (from past recollections on internal USA flights) that us non-Americans were issued SSSS on the first flight of every day...but then again, it's been 18 months since I've been to the USA and my care factor is pretty low. If we go to Canada skiing around late Dec/early January, I'll be sure to confirm the suspicions/rumours.

TSSSSA obviously want to keep us all guessing