Global Entry Enrollment Interview Availability
 

Boston is currently booking into October. I just got my conditional approval for renewal. Any idea if they will have openings before then or should I make a trip down to Newark? My GE expires in September...

I check the website every 2 hours. My wife's interview at LAX was on 10/17, and I managed to get her rescheduled to 07/22. The extra time checking hoping someone cancel... paid off. It should be the same for you in Boston.

Global Entry - Interview Availability
 

It looks like they have increased the number of hours for Global Entry interview appointments in Austin, presumably to reduce the backlog.

When I first signed up for an appointment, the first available was in January 2015. I've been checking daily for cancellations, and yesterday found that there were now a bunch of appointments available next week.

As it stands right now, there is a lot of availability in July and August.

Global Entry Interview Scheduling Question
 

My GF has been trying get her GE interview in BOS since April.

She's made two appointments via GOES. About a week before the appointment she gets an email from CBP saying that her interview date/time has been canceled.

I looked into it and each time she has made an appointment on a weekend or in the late afternoon on a weekday.

Her currently scheduled appointment is Sunday.

I found that CBP lists the BOS hours as 10:30AM - 2:30PM, Monday - Friday

So, my question is, why does GOES allow her to make appointments outside the operating hours of the BOS office? .... No wonder all her appointments keep getting canceled.

The next available date is November!

I don't recall having this much trouble when I got my GE a few years ago.

Anyone else having this kind of trouble?

If she travels, can she schedule the interview at another airport? We got ours at Dulles and there were TONS of available appointments. In fact, I could have scheduled mine within a day or so (and well beyond that) of getting conditional approval.

Some offices had been accepting walk ins for GE interviews. Check if this is possible.

The official answer is that you can't do a walk-in. Just show up at BOS, explain the problem and see if they can take you. It's almost always yes.

Global Entry - Interview Availability
 

So if you're looking for an earlier appointment, how do you find it? Every single time I log on, it shows me the calendar for appointments 3.5 months out, and searching manually, I never find anything earlier.

If there is an earlier appointment due to cancellation, will it automatically suggest it, or do you have to hunt for it? If the latter, how?

And is there a best time to look? Thanks!

Global Entry Interviews in Houston at IAH
 

I just got my interview invite today. I'm in the Houston Area and at IAH the next available appointment is Sept 23 2014 and at the City Hall Visitor Center the next appointment is Nov 19th. Wow!!

thank you

Initially the local office wasn't showing any appointments at all. Since you have to at least set an appointment within 30 days of receiving the provisional approval notification I was a bit concerned. I started checking every morning and was about to just go down to the airport when some appointments for like a month or more out appeared. Took one of those but kept checking almost every morning, even a few evenings, and actually caught a couple of openings at closer dates and better times. I think in all I changed three times until I caught one just a week away at a decent time. There's no way to have the system alert you to an opening. You have to keep checking and hunting for a better time.

This is my experience as well. I just kept checking pretty much daily until I found one that worked with my schedule and was reasonably soon (within 2-3 weeks).

So when you checked, the earlier dates showed up on the opening screen?

I obviously can't get back there since I'm approved and a card carrying GE but as I recall it required I go to the schedule appointment tab then the location of my choice even after I had an appointment. Once I got to the right location then sometimes better appointment times and dates would show up.

GOES system allows booking Sat GE interview appts at locations not open on Sat? (MCO)
 

So I went through applying for and got conditional approval for Global Entry (GE). That was on August 16. The nearest airport to me is BOS and it was booking out (at the time) until Christmas. JFK and the NYC facilities are a pain in my you know what to get to, and I have a trip in September that I would have liked to use the number for.

Long story short, I happened to see an opening at MCO for Sept 13 in the system (actually the schedule was about 60% open, 40% booked) and since airfare was cheap- I took the spot.

I happened to be checking the possibility of doing a walk in at Dulles due to an unexpected trip down there and noticed that apparently the MCO office isn't even open on Saturdays? How does the system let people book on a day when an office isn't even open?

I double checked, my appointment is for MCO and NOT Sanford (which *is* listed as having Sat appts) so it was not a mere mistake of me mis-reading the center info. And, to make matters worse, I went and checked other Saturdays for MCO and there are slots open with many of them booked!

I tried to call down to ask someone and no one answered, but even the voicemail said they weren't open on Saturdays.

Am I hosed? Anyone else use MCO on a Saturday for GE interview recently and can share? Should I just try for a walk in at IAD DCA or BWI?

My interview was on a Saturday despite the fact that the posted hours and days were only Monday through Friday. No guarantee that your location will for sure be open but I guess only a call will verify that.

Just had three interviews at once (wife and two kids) on Saturday, 30 August, at MCO. It was great---quick and friendly. I had my interview there several years ago. Can't remember what day. :)

Thanks guys! I *finally* got through to them yesterday while I was at IAD. As I said in my post, I had business that took me all around NOVA/DC/MD, and I happened to stop at IAD to attempt a walk in. Needless to say, they were SWAMPED with people, and had posted in several places that they would not see walk-ins. Ironically, it was as I was waiting that the MCO people answered.

The gentleman on the phone said that the hours on the website were historical and because they don't always have the staff to process on weekends it is not listed. He stated that as long as I had a printed/confirmed appointment time for a Saturday, I would be fine. Leads me to believe that they may also not see walk-ins, but can't say for sure.

Great! Kind of figured and hoped that was the situation. No way to tell if they take walk-ins.....here it wouldn't have been a problem as my wife, who has a DoD generated KTN, actually had some questions about getting a GE card and whether or not she'd get another/different KTN. The agent had more than enough time to chat with her and answer her questions.

ATL was showing interviews on Labor day. Figured I wasn't going to take the chance on a federal holiday...

NO walk-in Global Entry appts-JFK
 

Just so others don't go through the same experience as my husband and I did yesterday at JFK, let me give you an update on this situation. Because we both had conditional approvals, we had read that the JFK GE office was open 24/7 and that it was easy to do a walk-in. My husband had a 6:30 flight out of terminal 4, and we went in plenty of time with all documents. The earliest time I'd been able to schedule at the Customs House location in Manhattan was Oct 30. We have international travel Sept 29-Oct 16, and it made sense to get this taken care of. We signed in on the sheet, showing our arrival time...and no appt times (which we told the person), and we were directed to sit in the waiting room. We weren't surprised to see others taken ahead of us...but after 40 minutes, my husband checked the list and saw that our names were crossed off. We thought that might mean someone would call us soon? When we asked, after another 5 minutes, we were told they don't take walk-ins. I inquired why we weren't advised of this as soon as we got there, and we got the typical "not my problem" response. There was no supervisor available (of course not on a Sunday late afternoon). There were plenty of agents available; yet we were not seen. So I returned home on the Air Train...having wasted 4 hours on a beautiful afternoon. Perhaps other locations are more helpful and less bureaucratic...and maybe have more appointment times. We should have scheduled online--but thought to be courteous and not have to cancel last-minute since we weren't 100% sure we'd be able to make it to JFK in advance of my husband's flight to allow for the interviews. Now I'll be doing another Air Train r/t, WITH an appt. Sure hope the program itself is run in a more customer-friendly way.

Sorry about the bad experience. In fairness to CBP, they discourage walk-ins, especially at the busiest offices. I know some people get lucky, but scheduling an appointment really is the way to go if you want to waste the least amount of time.

Perhaps you can schedule an appointment for when your husband returns from his current trip, or schedule appointments for when you're at the airport for your Sept. 29 trip? Good luck.

Get some appt. scheduled, then regularly look for cancellations.

I booked mine at ABQ, which was wide open. Arrived almost two hours early and I was seen immediately. It seems that smaller airports are your best bet if you can time it out.

When I went to schedule my interview at Boston, I was looking at a four month wait. Was able to get in to JFK within a month, got approved no issues. So if you can pair it with travel to another location it can work well.

I went to the BOS office on 9/25. There were 4 people waiting outside the office (they all had appointments). The office staff of 2 were very busy, did not want to entertain any questions, and would not take me as a walk in. The guy was pretty rude, and seemed like he gets hassled by a lot of traffic who attempts to do a walk in.

Another gal was there who was late for her appointment (by 2 hours), and he basically told her tough luck, and would not instruct her on what to do next. She was very distraught as she had made the appointment so far in advance and pretty much messed up by coming late.

No GE Appointments at CLT Available?
 

I have an appointment at CLT this Friday for my GE interview. I looked last week to see if I could move the appointment up an hour and the website showed no appointments at all were available. Meanwhile, my brother was approved for GE today and he found the same thing.

I've never seen "No Appointments Available" for a location before, any idea what it means?

Booked solid for that hour perhaps?

No I mean it shows none at all for the foreseeable future:

http://cmk10.smugmug.com/Travel/Flye...L/0/L/GE-L.jpg

Here at the SAT GE office it happens all the time. One day there'll be none and you get the same message you've pasted then the next day a whole month's worth will show as available. I think I started out with no appointments listed then a few several weeks out and finally a number just a week away. My wife decided to enroll a couple of months later and went through pretty much the same drill. We followed the recommendations here and just kept checking and actually got our interviews done within a couple of weeks of our conditional approvals.

Do you know that they are doing interviews at RDU 5/18-5/21?

So I've heard, but I already have this appointment scheduled for tomorrow and it'll be nice to get PreCheck for the three trips I have scheduled between now and when they'll have it at RDU.

Global Entry - Interview Availability
 

Is there a way to find out what slot availability for Global Entry interview looks like at SFO?

If you have an appointment pending you can select any office. I had to travel to DC so just did it there instead of my home airport.

IIRC, when your schedule your interview, the GOES page will go to the week (or month?) with the first available slot. For SFO, it can be 5 months away! SFO accepts drop-in interview for ABTC only. Try find another location if you can.

My original appointment at SFO was four months out. I kept reviewing the schedule calendar and was able to change it into a new opening 3 weeks away.

Check the schedule on a regular basis.

Think they had opened their schedule on weekends when I processed mine in SFO (early Jan or so). Hope that's still on and gives more options.

Has anyone had success dropping in in SFO, even though they don't allow it?

I'm flying through there soon at a fairly quiet time of day, would like to try to expedite the process and obviously they are booking appointments for ~ January 2016 right now.

Following up on this - sitting outside the SFO enrollment center right now - the agent at the told me that each agent has three interviews booked per 15 minute slot, and they have three agents.
So far everyone has shown up, so I've had no luck taking a missed appointment. They're not exactly trying to fit me in but said I could wait for a missed slot.

1. It's always monitoring the schedule. Not uncommon, especially when there's really lousy WX and people get held up, for slots to open.

2. Good to know about the walk-ins. That's pretty much par for the course at stations which say they don't take walk-ins.

Yep, I'm going to keep watching for openings. They ended up not letting me into the queue.