bennos

To be clear, I'm not asking why get GE (I have it, I'd get it again), but why people make these disproportionate time investments that they can't possibly recover had they just waited until the next interview at a closer location.

Put another way, for that 16 hour day I cited as an example, you'd need to save 15 minutes (using that estimate) 64 times before you broke even. ie: The physically closer appointment could be a year in the future and it would still be better to wait for it.

nerdi

nevermind - just checked and suddenly an appointment opened up on 11/5. ^ i snatched it up. i have a trip coming up 11/23 so i'm excited to have this ready before the trip.

didn't even bother doing it on the hour. looks like everyone was right - there ARE cancellations that pop up often.

lincolnjkc

Everyone values things differently -- I don't think I'd do the 16 hour drive someone else mentioned but like I said not having to disrobe/unpack to me is a major benefit psychologically/stresswise that's disproportionate to the actual time involved, so I could easily see myself doing a 5 hour, maybe longer, drive/trip out of the way if that's what it took to gain that benefit -- plus there's something to be said for just being done with it and not having the lingering obligation hanging out there.

Plus some people just enjoy an excuse to travel. I drove 3.5 hours each way to Buffalo when I bought my house because I had to do the wire transfer authorization in person and that was, at the time, the nearest Bank of America branch to Cleveland [never felt it was worth changing banks when I moved inland from the west coast] -- I wouldn't want to do it every day, but it was a nice excuse to just hit the road and enjoy the scenery for a few hours.

txviking

This. Exactly this. I recently had a trip to NYC for work. I decided to fly into Buffalo (yes, on the other side of the state) in part to do my NEXUS interview (across the border in Fort Erie), but mostly because I wanted to visit Niagara Falls. And it was an excuse for a road trip.

The CBSA agent was a bit confused by this, but being fond of road trips isn't illegal.

Sarark

I'm having the same issue after doing my interview at Otay Mesa:

10/1 applied
10/13 conditionally approved
10/19 interview

I still haven't gotten my final approval letter, and I have a flight out of SAN tomorrow and I don't have access to TSA pre-check. The agent at Otay Mesa was extremely friendly and said I would be approved as soon as my fingerprints had been processed, but I'm still waiting :-/. Hopefully something changes today!

nerdi

Husband's application: submitted 10/12, conditionally approved 10/23. Interview scheduled for 12/18 - hopefully something sooner will open up.

internizzi

Application: Oct 5, 2015 (late evening)
Conditional approval: Oct 16, 2015
Interview & approval: Oct 18, 2015 (JFK)
Card arrived: Oct 23, 2015

tgifarris

I suppose for everyone it's an individual decision. First of all, it only took 5.5 hours each way for us to drive, including one stop. We drove down on Sunday night and home on Monday afternoon. I personally have waited in lines at Immigration for close to an hour at times. Most recently, this summer in Houston, where there were non GE kiosks. The last few times I have flown out of DIA the security wait lines have been atrocious, so the TSA pre-check alone would've saved me 30 minutes each on my last two trips; not to mention the shoe/laptop routine.

We are going to New Zealand and Australia next month. We'll be flying back to the US the Sunday night of Thanksgiving weekend. I have no idea how crazy the lines might be on the busiest travel day of the year, but I'd rather not risk it. Furthermore, we'll also save time in both New Zealand and Australia (where I have also waited for close to an hour before) with the GE access since both places offer GE advantages. So for this trip alone, we'll be saving time in NZ, then AUS, then again in NZ (flying on ANZ through Auckland from Aus), then the US.

I had initially filled out the application for the TSA pre-check program and even scheduled the interview at DIA with no problem for about a week out. When I researched each program in more detail, I decided instead to do the GE program and never anticipated that the interview availability would be so much worse for GE. By the time I figured out how long the wait for Denver would be, I'd already spent the $100 ($200 for both of us). So considering all of the above factors, FOR US, we felt it would be worth it to make the drive and not risk missing our connection back to Denver coming back in the event that the lines are crazy that night. Not to mention the time savings in NZ/Aus.

Lastly, some things you simply can't put a price on. After spending 15+ hours on planes going out and coming back in, not waiting even 30 minutes in line at Immigration in any of our locations was deemed to make it worth the time investment to make the trek for the interview. Had our trip next month been to Cancun or something where we'd be flying directly into Denver, then we wouldn't have done it. Given all of the factors involved, it was worth it, to us. The time "lost" driving down there wasn't considered valuable time as we wouldn't have done much else with that time. The time gained on our vacation is invaluable. Will we get a proportionate time savings to what was spent? Of course not, but in terms of value, it will be far exceeded. Plus, we got to have some great Mexican food in Albuquerque.

mules

9/24/15 applied
10/5/15 conditionally approved
10/26/15 interview and approved (MSP) earlier dates were available

The only snag I had were my fingerprints were not registering as clearly as the computer wanted. They looked fine to the agent but the computer did not want to accept them. We tried moisturizer and taking the prints from a standing position. Ultimately the agent had to get a manual override from the supervisor. The approval email was in the inbox by the time I got home.

I am looking forward to the benefits for entering Australia in January.

edited to add: card arrived 10/31/15

Majuki

Since there were a few others who've also talked about the benefit in the last few days, SmartGate is now open to all US passport holders (and a number of other passport holders).

It's still a time saver on the way back, however. Even with the X I've only had to wait ~30 seconds for a CBP agent to assist. ^

GrandMoffJoseph

Two questions:

1. If I applied this week, is it at all possible that I might receive conditional approval in time to schedule an interview around the Christmas holiday time? (I'll be off work then anyway)

2. There are no interview centers in Missouri. Can we schedule an interview at any available center?

CMK10

A friend of mine applied October 18th, approved today and scheduled her interview (PHX) for December 8th.

nerdi

Yes, and yes.

The appointment schedule is pretty wide open for some centers. If I wanted to drive 4 hours each way I could interview pretty soon in Vegas. Some are backed up though, so just check a few different centers near you.

Daggett76

German citizen / US permanent resident.

Applied: 10/18/2015
Conditional Approval: 10/27/2015

First appointment available at SFO when I first checked: 04/12/2016

Kept re-checking every 10 minutes or so, moved appointment to March, then February, and finally late November.

UPDATE: Just checked the appointment calendar again, and got one for this Thursday. Woot!

cheltzel

When I renewed my membership a while ago, the center at ORD had lots of open slots. My wife renewed recently and she had no issue finding a convenient time at ORD as well.

Maybe someone who has an active application in can check and post on this.

You can do same day returns from STL to ORD and back for around $203. Not as cheap as driving but personally, I would gladly exchange 8+ hours in the car for the price (considering you will spend about $100 on gas).