Tag: security

Potential New Slowdown At TSA Checkpoint (PreCheck & Regular Lines) Thanks To New Policy

We’ve reported in the past that lines at TSA PreCheck might be getting shorter and faster, because they were cracking down on allowing low risk people who had never gone through the PreCheck process to get PreCheck status, More recently, the regular TSA line had the potential to become a little shorter too, because more airlines were being added to TSA Pre-Check.

Unfortunately, the news for all of us, TSA PreCheck or not, just got a little worse – both lines most likely are about to slow down a little. Why?

Real I.D.

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Why Does The TSA Swab Your Hands, Phone, Laptop, Food, Bag, Shoes, etc.?

It doesn’t matter if you’ve just spent 30 minutes in the regular TSA queues, less than 5 minutes in the TSA Pre-Check line or 1 minute in the CLEAR area, all lines eventually lead to, not Rome, but the X-ray machines.

Once you’re there, it doesn’t matter if you’ve done this a bajillion times before, or even if you haven’t and know what to do to get you through X-ray quickly, you might go through the machine and get the random beeping alarm. Or maybe you got the dreaded SSSS on your boarding pass.

Either way, the TSA workers pull you aside and say you have to go through a secondary screening. It usually just involves them swabbing your hands (and/or your cell phone, laptop, food, bag, shoes, etc.), putting the swab in an Explosives Trace Detector (ETD) and, when given the all-clear, you’re told you can be on your merry way.

But why are they doing that? And why YOU?

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The U.S. Airports With The Longest & Shortest TSA Security Wait Times

If you haven’t been convinced to get TSA Pre-Check yet, chances are you’ve spent quite some time in those long queues that wind back and forth and back and forth at some of the TSA security checkpoints across the country. Granted, some of those queues are longer than others, depending on where you’re flying from. In fact, a website looked at the security wait times of the United States’ 25 busiest airports (as determined by total passengers boarding in 2018) to see which had the longest and shortest waits (and which were somewhere in between). Here’s what they found:

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Watch Out For Airbnb AGAIN, New United Promotion, Warning If Flying To/Through This Country, & More

Happy Sunday to all of our travel friends, both near and far! Here are some articles we’ve read from other bloggers (and other sources) that we think you may like, as well, so we’re passing them along.

Continue reading “Watch Out For Airbnb AGAIN, New United Promotion, Warning If Flying To/Through This Country, & More”

We’ve Decided CLEAR Is Not Worth It For Us. Here’s Why…

Back in December, I finally signed us up for CLEAR. That’s the service that gives you an express lane access past the TSA ID checkpoint. I had a free trial membership with TripIt Pro for three months and a free family membership so I figured we’d give it a shot. Well it’s been over six months and I’ve been able to use the CLEAR lanes a couple of times. As of now, I just don’t see how it’s worth the extra money they charge for the service. There are several things that led to this conclusion.: Continue reading “We’ve Decided CLEAR Is Not Worth It For Us. Here’s Why…”