bloodyeyeballs

I got mine on an outbound international.

Yes it is right on your boarding pass. You can leave the airport and dump all of your illegal stuff before going back through security. If you are traveling with a companion on a separate PNR, you can give them your stuff to take through security as well.

This reminded me of right after 9/11 when they did the secondary screenings at the gate. Once they selected me, so I handed off my laptop bag to my wife to take on board.

grapegrower

travelling as a somewhat older male alone on RTW tickets (sort of quasi one ways i guess ) with many segments international and USA domestic on UA, I was SSSS'd on a very regular basis for a couple of years. too regular, imo, to be random.
Now I travel mainly with my partner and get TSA pre check and haven't had a another SSSS for years.
Now saying that has probably jinxed me.

exerda

I've had it happen in countries where TSA isn't involved at all, FWIW (e.g. BKK-NRT). Random-esque it may indeed be, though the UA staff I spoke to on a couple of occasions (once in Asia, once in Europe) insisted it was "DHS" who flagged me--which is a case of a lying or misinformed agent, given my name isn't remotely like any on any list and I am a DHS Trusted Traveler via GE.

gnaget

At FRA? I haven't seen anything at the gates. However, last summer, I was grabbed while going upstairs from A gates to Z gates. They were grabbing random passengers and a US bound passenger is given a secondary. They had a body scanner in place, which I refused. The cop told me that he was instructed to grab every 10th passenger. Nothing to do with SSS.

At MUC I have noticed that they have body scanners near the US bound gates.

In 2013 I got SSSS at KIX. There was a very perfunctory bag search at the gate. When I arrived at SFO I obtained another boarding pass and the SSSS disappeared. This was a LH issued ticket but I managed to enter my Global Entry number in the reservation.

Boghopper

Could be true. A friend of mine went on a rtw trip with some unusual stops, like Ethiopia and Myanmar. He got pulled out for extra screening in Bkk and hkg, and when back in the U.S. Got a nice long interrogation about where he had been and why. They told him they had been watching his movements and told the authorities overseas where he was going to be in the lookout for him.

His wife, who is Swiss and was with him the whole time, got none of that.

gnaget

That's true. When you complain they tell you "that your country demanded that we do this." This is of course nonsense. The US might create an alert due to some bogus reason, but the implementation is up to the country in question.

TomMM

I've only been flagged on Intl return flights. While my domestic connection will not have it I do not get my PreCheck.

Depending on the departure airport, the extra security screening has either taken place when entering the boarding area or after scanning my BP while boarding. The latter happened at NRT. The display on the BP scanner indicated "Selective". Also the gate agents had a hand written list of passengers who were on the list.

JVPhoto

No SSSS on my BP today MUC-EWR but going into the H01-06 gates you have to show your BP/passport and then after that someone else looks at it and will randomly send you over to one of 4 podiums.
They asked how many bags I had, who packed them, have they been in my possession and have any electronics been repaired or out of my possession. They always used to ask the same things for TXL-EWR but in both cases never actually checked my bags/electronics like at BRU with SSSSS.

djohannw

Yes, had the "honor" last December to go through that. They have set up a dedicated area at the beginning of the "Z"-concourse (to the left when you get to the "old" part of the concourse coming from the SEN-Lounge) where essentially you have to show your electronic devices to get them swiped for explosives residue and also a pat-down. After that you are held in an area near this checkpoint and then you are escorted to the gate into a separate lane for boarding, normally after GS and before group 1 no matter what your boarding pass says...

All in all a very inefficient process and not anything that would improve security at all...

Greetings - Dirk

mherdeg

I got my first ever "This is not a boarding pass. You are checked-in, but we are unable to provide any boarding passes for your itinerary via united.com." document on a PURELY DOMESTIC trip today. Will edit this post and update this thread on whether or not this means SSSS, what the experience is like (ex-SFO), etc.

Edit: Yes, this is an SSSS on a domestic trip. This is new for me!

I asked a check-in agent at SFO to explain it — "hey, it looks like they are spelling PreCheck differently today, can you explain?" — and she said, well, that's too bad, it's going to be slow going for you on tomorrow's flight. Gee, thanks . She was happy to try to re-enter my Known Traveler # (since I happen to be carrying my Global Entry card) and reprinted the BP with no change (still SSSS). She said, "yeah, this sometimes randomly happens to employee travelers, too. Sorry."

Now I gotta repack my bags to stow the loose liquids that are TSA Pre acceptable but not SSSS certified, and probably check my bag (I am at the tail end of a cold and am carrying some non-prescription cough medicine ≥ 100 mL). Welp.

Edit: The SSSS experience at SFO was — presented my boarding pass and ID (and Global Entry card, to be petulant) to the TSA screener. Screener set aside my BP and ID and called for a supervisor. Supervisor led me to the front of the X-ray queue, had me go through metal detector, called another screener to dig into my carry-on bags and unpack everything and swab everything, and gave me a pat-down while I watched my bag get dismantled. This was fast, efficient, and everyone was very courteous. Only took about an extra five minutes versus the normal Pre-Check process. There did need to be at least two extra TSA screeners available to handle just me for a while, so I can imagine this would be a slower process if I had come at a more busy time. (I showed up early and during a relative lull out of an abundance of cautious). Hopefully this was "random" ??? and doesn't keep happening.

emcampbe

I had this ex-YYZ a couple of weeks ago. First time I've had this. And I'm a Nexus card holder. CATSA (Canadian version of TSA) claimed that the "airline" selected me for this honor, but I highly doubt it.

And a much more complicated, disorganized process than I've ever seen in the US (though its been a while since I've gotten SSSS in the US). They won't do this in the Nexus line (though I was in F on a later flight, so went thorugh the priority line). Person in front of me had it also. Person directed me to the front of the machine, then yelled at me for going where he asked me and had me step back. Got scanned, came out when requested, and then told it didn't work, I had to go back again. After all this, security woman was running from the front to the back of the checkpoint seemingly not knowing what they were doing. Nothing was being told to either of us. I finally asked for my BP back, since my bags were done, and guy seemed to look through them, then didn't pull anything out and didn't even address me. Had to ask twice more before i got it back. I asked for a supervisor, who basically said this is the normal process. I went over what I went through again, stating no info. whatsoever the whole time, I had to ask for BP back three times. They could've cared less. Really hoping I don't get this SSSS again there.

skidooman

They even print me a SSSS... for a flight departing from a non-US location.

Of course, local security shrugged it off, they did not do anything particular, not knowing what SSSS meant.

The connecting flight had no TSA PRE.

Next flight, my privileges were back.

So, OP, this is probably a one-time event. Totally random.

bioyuki

Ugh, I'm flying YVR-SFO today and just got the dreaded can't give me a boarding pass message during OLCI. US passport with GE and haven't gotten SSSS in probably 10 years. I did book this as a one way on short notice so maybe that's why? My BF is on the same itinerary though (US PP with GE also) and didn't get...

villox

I received SSSS last week returning CDG-ORD, whereas my companion did not. Although informed it was "random selection", I was afraid I had gotten on some list.

Happy to report that I got pre-check again today when checking in for a domestic flight tomorrow. So I guess it really was just random.

RobOnLI

I got SSSS on my boarding pass (SFO-FRA) as I was returning from a Middle East country that may not be considered so friendly. I flew from there to IST to FRA to SFO to SEA (only routing I could get). I got the SSSS treatment from the German folks in FRA and, of course, no PreCheck on SFO-SEA. In fact I had to talk to an immigration officer in SFO because Global Entry gave me the "X" as well. I've had no problems since so it was purely because of where I was coming from and a one-off.

-RM