ubernostrum

All of my international travel the past couple years has been to/from Canada, all on RJs (except for one time managing to standby onto a UA A320 YYZ-ORD) including things I'd presume are suspicious-looking, like single passenger making multiple air crossings in a week.

Have not been selected for additional screening on any of those flights in either direction. In a few weeks I'll be doing DCA-YUL and back as my first international trip with GE, though, so maybe it's just waiting for me.

Silver Fox

Perhaps you have a similar name to someone that has just popped up on the "he's a very naughty boy" database.

GUWonder

Could be, and sometimes indeed is. That said, I've seen this hit people where that was definitely not the case for the full name. I've seen this most frequently hit people that have just about as unique a full name as possible -- largely due to the multi-cultural backgrounds of the hit individuals being represented in their full name.

This is in part a product of partial name analysis .... so the more name data provided, the higher the odds of being hit for some people -- there is irony in that situation given the governmental claim that asking for more complete name data from passengers was to reduce this kind of thing.

More US persons have more characters/complete names in their full name as listed on their passports than on their DLs. The consequences of more data being supplied by passengers and/or the airlines has some twisted outcomes.

nrr

On Foreign flights to the USA, based on info from agent in ZRH (on flt. to JFK), who did a hand inspection of my carry-on since my bp had SSSS: DHL requires for inbound flts. to the USA, a "random" selection of pax were to be SSSSed. I had this once (about 5 months ago).
For domestic flights, I was under the impression SSSS had "disappeared"--not for the OP though.
PS: The agent in ZRH had a p/o of 10-15 names.

GUWonder

SSSS has not disappeared for domestic flights in the US. I've seen people hit with it at various US airports this year and the TSA still has a process to screen SSSS passengers for domestic flights. Sometimes this results in a sort of mess as one set of TSA policies runs into contradiction with other TSA policies -- for example, a single SSSS adult traveling with two PreClear LLL children who are barely toddlers at an airport with both WTMDs and strip search machines.

jon0

Just got SSSS'ed coming into the US from MEX. The secondary screening in MEX wasn't too bad -- the main security checkpoint screeners completely ignored the SSSS annotation (might have something to do with a thumb obstructing the letters when the documentations were presented), but the secondary screener at the gate had a list of selected passenger that they matched against, so there was no getting around that.

The actual secondary screening wasn't too intrusive -- a quick visual search of my carry-on, and a light pat-down with an additional shoe-search. My checked-in luggage was also additionally tagged PPBM.

I'm a GE member and have always received pre-check since the early days of the pilot program (except for non-eligible itineraries such as on non-participating airlines). My last and only other SSSS was about 15 years ago, but that boarding-pass was quickly 'fixed' by the check-in agent who saw the annotation and realized that it was rather silly to subject a frequent traveller to additional screening. No such luck this time though, I asked at check-in for a non-SSSS boarding pass, but was promptly denied.

Had no problems with GE once I reached US, so I'm hoping this was just a random selection.

samosa

My wife and I have had GE for about a year and 3 months and since an international trip in March we have both gotten SSSS on all our boarding passes (about 6). Applied for redress but haven't heard back in a few weeks. It is especially troublesome since my wife is pregnant and they always ask her to disrobe to show her belly. It takes us an extra 1.5 hours since they re-scan our luggage and clothes multiple times. It truly is funny since I also have a government clearance.

tomhuber2003

I have been GE for years and have never gotten SSSS. In fact, I am Precheck every single time (fat lot of good that does lately). Even in YYZ, where they don't have precheck.

Usually SSSS is when you travel one way.

Is there anything strange in your booking patterns?

dmbtr3

Same here. My wife and I went on vacation in May. Both have GE and Pre check. I fly very often, never had issues. On our return trip back from vacation and every flight since, we both get SSSS. She's flown twice. I've now flown 4 times (and 3 more over the next 10 days!). I think what triggered it is that we flew on miles, went to Turkey, and each ticket was one-way. Our flight back was from the UK as we moved around Europe and purchased in-between flights on discount airlines. The irony is the GE worked like a charm on the same flight I had SSSS! I wish the TSA and CBP would work together.

So the point of my post.... is my only option the redress process? It seems from above that my TSA pre-check can work again after a redress, which is good. It just seems like a lot to go through and will take a good amount of time.

samosa

Yes, it looks like redress is the only option, or sue since they took away a "license" without notice and opportunity to correct.

I filled out the redress and sent my information in--wasn't too much work and my wife filled out the form but hasn't sent her info in and we took a flight again together. 3 days prior to submitting the info, she had SSSS on a domestic flight. Now we both did not have SSSS and could check in online, but only she had precheck. Just remember to add your GE and Redress numbers to your bookings. BTW, they do work together because I couldn't use GE coming back from my trip.

dmbtr3

Interesting. Thanks for the advice.

GUWonder

TRIP and a Redress Number may work to stop the <SSSS>, but the <SSSS> is likely to drop off on its own after some time -- unless you've been administratively punished with a "secret" blacklisting. Even with a TRIP and use of Redress number and GE number, there is no guarantee that <SSSS> won't continue or return to hit. I would wait it out for about a month and four or more separately ticketed PNRs and start with a little name game adjustment before seeing what TRIP yields -- but that is just me.

dmbtr3

So it took this advice. 3rd PNR - 6th leg later - and TSA precheck has returned (and thus no SSSS) Hopefully it's gone for good. I fly again tomorrow and will find out.

Scifience

I've had a few cases of being SSSSed, usually on last-minute one-way international reservations. Most recently, CLE-JFK-NRT booked about two hours departure.

TSA at CLE actually completely missed the SSSS, but I was dragged back (!) to TSA by a gate agent and TSO after being paged by name in the lounge JFK, where I was given a 30 minute grilling, complete with requests to photocopy my passport and drivers' license for a "report." I escalated as far as the JFK FSD (whose card I now have...) and gave him quite an earful. The whole encounter ended in him basically conceding that the whole thing was a farce as I had already been airside and whatever warranted my being dragged out of the lounge apparently wasn't severe enough to warrant a terminal dump. Meanwhile, everything but my backpack remained with my coworker in the lounge and was not rescreened...

No SSSS or problems since on several trips, and GE and PreCheck are working fine, so no idea what was going on that day.

nrr

How did they know [bolded] at JFK? The TSA agents who scan bps and check ids, can't input info into a computer.