First time with PreCheck
 

Okay, happily I got PreCheck (and will likely do so everytime I fly thanks to my employer). But this being my first time, I'm somewhat confused on the laptop policy with PreCheck, especially at places that may not have a dedicated PreCheck lane. Can the laptop stay in, regardless of whether it's one of those special TSA friendly laptop bags, or will it need to come out?

Thanks for the advice.

If you've been selected for Pre-Check on a given segment, the laptop stays in its bag.

On occasion, you may find some stations where pre-check is closed at certain hours and you are granted "modified" pre-check. On those occasions, you will be instructed as to the differences. Usually it's that the laptop comes out of its bag.

Wirelessly posted (beckoa's BB: Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9810; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.11+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.1.0.694 Mobile Safari/534.11+)

Or as in the case places w/o pre completely- they let you keep your shoes on but that's it. Everything else was the same as regular security. Had this in AKN last week.

Often1 and beckoa, thanks for the info. So for now laptop gets to stay.

Although unfortunately, Pre-Check or no Pre-Check, my boots will need to come off if I go through a metal detector, the steel shank has a tendency to set those things off.

And even if you have PreCheck & there *is* a PreCheck lane, the magical randomizer sometimes will send you to a regular lane. Happened to me at SEA a few weeks ago, but at least I could use the Premier/1K/Whatever lane rather than the mob scene lane. Otherwise, scored PreCheck on all trips so far this year.

I believe I have read a directive about "electronics stacked on top of one another" or similar language needing to be taken out of the bag. If this is correct, does it apply if, say, I slip my iPad into the same compartment of a laptop bag housing my laptop? That's easily solvable, and I don't imagine that it would apply to an iPad and laptop housed separately in, say, a backpack, but stacked save for dividers in the bag.

It stays in, unless you are doing expedited (terminals where they don't have room for a dedicated lane, or when a PreCheck lane is closed). Then it comes out, but usually you can keep your freedom baggie in.

You'd be surprised on the boots thing.

What randomizer?

A few family members of mine who don't travel much managed to get pre-check on two flights recently, and flying out of PDX they got it, but still ended up getting sent through a body scanner (but didn't have to take off shoes, belt, take out computer, etc.) I don't know if the official pre-check lane was closed or what but from what I've seen and read on other threads on here, there seems to be more and more of this type of thing happening, and especially at my home airport. Kinda feels like a bait and switch with TSA trying to get people to pay to sign up and touting all the benefits of Pre-Check, but then end up sending random travelers through the lane anyways increasing the wait, and then start to have the body scanners be used more often for people in Pre-Check. I mean if that's how its going to go, whats the point?

Every time I have used PreCheck, I keep my laptop and iPad on top of each other in the same bag and never have had a problem. Although, I have read on here the TSO sometimes asks you to take one of them out of the bag.

Been through PreCheck well over a hundred times.

- No issues with "stacked" electronics (i.e., laptop + tablet). With 2 laptops, I've seen them ask people to take just one out.

- When PreCheck closed or not available, I've been asked to remove laptop/liquids, but keep shoes, belt, light outerwear on. TSA-friendly laptop bags were fine at multiple airports. I just unzipped rather than completely removing the laptop.

- I've never witnessed a randomizer which sent PreCheck people to a regular lane. Rather, you will sometimes get the long beep when going through the metal detector, which means you've been randomly selected for additional screening. This just consists of a hand swab, in my experience. Regular PreCheck experience otherwise.

Cheers both, thank you. I'm looking forward to the PreCheck experience, since the hassle of security is really the only thing I dislike about flying.

tonight at JFK (AA), two of the three people ahead of me at PreCheck got the long beep and were instructed to empty their pockets and go through the MMW. :td:

Must be a new "extra screening" process. I wonder if TSAPressSec can chime in on this.

"Trusted Traveler" is rapidly becoming a completely meaningless phrase :td:

I had asked Ross if going through the MMW in Precheck would be truly "optional," as his post on the subject implied, but he has yet to directly answer that question. If the above is now a standard "random" thing in PreCheck, I think I have my answer.

I've gone through precheck at IAD a few times with a backpack that had two laptops stacked on each other, a kindle fire on top of them (next compartment out), and two phones in the outermost. The first time I asked if I needed to take one of the laptops out, and they said "put them through and we'll see how it looks". Second time I just ran it all through. No hassle either time.