Majuki

The setup wasn't like this in T2 (at least as of Wednesday).

pushmyredbutton

Just sent a complaint to Clear.. SFO International A is almost never open during the posted hours. No idea what’s going on, but quite annoying.

Majuki

Two months ago I went by in the evening, and the non-Precheck CLEAR lane was open, but there were no employees over by the Precheck CLEAR lane.

Powers106

FWIW, I canceled my membership today (due to renew end of March) and they offered 2 free months to stick around, they will move my renewal date to end of May at no extra charge. I guess I'll decide then what to do, but 2 free months is 2 free months!

Majuki

I received an e-mail from CLEAR indicating that you can enroll in or renew TSA PreCheck through CLEAR at SMF. I think EWR is the only other location enabled at the moment?

Even as more airports get enabled, this enrollment method is likely of limited value for most of us on here, but it's nice to have options.

paule123

At MCO this morning, the Clear line had about 8 people in it with multiple people at the kiosks. Shockingly, the TSA Pre lines to the left had no people in it. Bailed out of the Clear line and tried the new facial recognition system at the TSA Pre. Didn't quite understand what was going on with the camera/kiosk ("tap here", with some kind of scanner, huh?, never did tap) , agent waved me through, and was quick and easy.

JAXPax

Boston Terminal A (Delta) Clear at the PreCheck (left side facing the checkpoint, there is a Clear for standard on the right side) this evening... nobody in line. Walked up, did the eye scan, scanned boarding pass with one ambassador, then a second one was standing at the other side with that handheld device, and he addressed me by name based on whatever was on his device and walked me past the TSA ID checker. Curbside to SkyClub in about 4 minutes total. Regular PreCheck line was probably 30 people with a huge blockage at the entrance as the line guard seemed to be looking closely at everyone's boarding passes.

JAXPax

The "Tap here" is for states with digital driver's license which either is in Apple/Google Wallet or in a state-specific app that'll give a QR code to scan. It's only a handful of states.... AZ, UT, CA, IA, MD, GA, CO.

dayone

Can you explain this in more detail?

JAXPax

Sure, so far 6 states have rolled out digital drivers license that you can keep on your phone just like you would a credit card in your phone's "wallet" or just like Apple Pay or whatever. You can display it visually with the info on there, or to verify it (like a store would scan the barcode on your ID or swipe it to verify age, or a police officer) it'll display a QR code to scan, or can be transmitted by tapping. About 25 airports have this capability with TSA so far. It's kind of like the machines that now they don't need your boarding pass, just your ID and they run it through the little card reader and it displays your info on the screen including photo and flights so they can verify. This is just instead of the physical ID, you're tapping your phone. For now, you do need to carry the physical ID as a back-up.

thyroxine

anyone else canceling Clear? flying out of DEN makes it pretty much useless. 1 clear lane that consistently has 15-20 people in it when there's 15 precheck lanes that are empty.

abaheti

Data point: My wife flew out of SMF last week Sunday around 1-2pm. Said the pre-check line was quite long at Southwest, but CLEAR was empty, so she used CLEAR. Was asked to show her ID and do eye scan. Then was asked by TSA for her ID, but then he changed his mind after the CLEAR rep said something to him. People in pre-check were annoyed that she got to cut in line ahead of them. So, she was happy to have CLEAR that day at least. My results remain mixed at best, basically out of OAK.

Qwkynuf

This statement intrigues me.

Which people? All of them? Just a few? How do you know they were "annoyed"? Did they become an angry mob? Whip out their torches and pitchforks? Maybe they just had them out because they needed to dispose of them before the X-Ray machine...

Further - WHY would they be annoyed? They paid for PreCheck so that they could "jump the line" ahead of literally everyone who is non-PreCheck. Given that Clear is available to anyone who signs up for it (and pays after the free trial), all of those "annoyed" people could have been in the Clear line but chose not to. Do people at Disneyland get "annoyed" because other people use the Lightning Lane (FastPass)?

It's like saying that people who drive Hondas are annoyed because you have an Acura.

it just seems like an odd bit of hyperbole to me. Using a system put in place by the airport - that you happen to be eligible for - shouldn't affect other passengers, and is quite frankly none of their business. My home airport has four lines - regular non-PreCheck, PreCheck, KCM, and an "express lane" (with very poor explanation of what it's for or how to get to it). The express line is for anyone ticketed in first class on any airline, and anyone with the top one or two levels of status on any airline.

During the pandemic, my PreCheck expired and it took for-ev-er to get it renewed. Since I was Diamond with Delta (and was upgraded to first on more than 90% of my flights), I would use the express lane and walk past hundreds of people in the main line to get there. There would typically be somewhere between 0-3 people in the express line and we would get waved to the document checker before the people in the main line. Often, people would see us in the short line and duck under the rope - and then get sent back.

Point of all of that being - the TSA and airport make the rules. If what you are doing is within those rules, it's nobody's business. But it seems more likely to me that making assumptions about the emotional state of complete strangers makes for a more dramatic and compelling story than "We went through Clear, the line was shorter than PreCheck".

Majuki

I've not had it happen with CLEAR, but I did have it happen one time with Global Entry. I had gotten the X on the receipt, and I was waiting for the USCBP officer who happened to be alternating with the visitor's lane (that was quite long). The passenger who was next in line became verbally irate when the USCBP officer motioned for me to come over and, from this passenger's perspective, cut the line.

Regardless of the sentiment of the other passengers, the situation that abaheti described is the perfect use case of CLEAR these days. Most of the time recently, the regular Precheck lane with the full TDC was no slower than the CLEAR lane, but every once in awhile there's a long wait for the TDC and CLEAR saves time.

abaheti

@Qwkynuf you clearly have strong feelings. All I can give you is that two people (I presume a couple) pointed at her and one asked the TSA person in an agitated, loud tone "why does she get to go before us?". No, she did not stop to take a poll or check with everyone else or chat with them, and I wasn't there. I trust her to know when someone pointing at her and talking about her loudly is annoyed or making a general curious inquiry about how the system works.

As to WHY people would get annoyed? I don't expect most folks to be logical when they are stressed bytravel. And most folks who have pre check now probably assume it means they go first, like the poor folks who get status on an airline or buy early boarding only to learn they are in groups 3 or 4, behind a bunch of even more special folks. FT readers are more knowledgeable about his this all works.



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