- Tools for Planning Long Trips: Where to Begin
- Tools to Create Maps & Itineraries
- An Easier Way to Create Maps & Itineraries
- An Even Easier Way to Create Maps & Itineraries
- Tools and Tips on Bookings
- Tools and Tips for Air Travel
- What travel programs should you join?
- Tools to record your trip steps
- Tools to Reflect on Your Trips
- What to do with Fido
- AN EVEN EASIER WAY TO CREATE MAPS & ITINERARIES – TAKE 2
What travel programs should you join? How you travel and where you travel and how often you travel dictate which travel programs you should join.
US Customs & Border Patrol’s (CBP) Global Entry Program
If you travel internationally, you can join Global Entry. This program is a federal government traveler identification pass that lets you get through Customs more quickly. Global Entry has several requirements:
- Fill out the application (You have to read a couple of messages after you click Get Started on the Global Entry panel before you can get to the application. These are going to tell you you should just get TSA Pre-Check. They’ve even lowered the price of TSA Pre-Check to try to push you to that pass.)
- Pay the $100 fee
- Once approved (and this can take months), participate in an in-person interview conducted by a US Customs & Border Patrol agent (and receive that person’s approval)
- Enjoy the benefits for 5 years, although you’ll need to start the renewal process a year before it expires, you can do a remote interview for renewals
Global Entry includes TSA Pre-check which speeds you through the security line (after your identification has been checked by a US Customs & Border Patrol agent). TSA Pre-check costs $78 on its own, so Global Entry is a good deal if you travel internationally, which also speeds you through Customs.
Workarounds for the Problem with Global Entry
The one problem with applying for Global Entry right now is that there is a backlog for in-person interviews. The prevailing advice from CBP due to this backlog (of up to 18 months) is to:
- Walk into US Customs & Border Patrol when you return from an international flight to go through the interview process. (This assumes you’re not trying to also transfer to a domestic flight in order to return home, and it assumes there is no one in line ahead of you. Both, are unlikely. Horror stories abound.)
- The other suggestion is to sign up for Appointment Scanner. This site will notify you of earlier appointments in the event of cancellation. But it costs $29 for one month’s worth of notifications. (This assumes you live near the airport where the interview needs to take place, and you can drop everything to run down there.) Now, I haven’t used this service because it wasn’t available when I got Global Entry. So maybe they give you more notice, but it probably receives cancellations when someone can’t make it, which is likely the day of the appointment. Would you cancel an appointment it took you a year to get?
- There is another option, which is cheaper. There’s an app in the app store called Global Interview. It’s $4.99 and will alert you when an interview becomes available at your chosen airport(s). You need to go to the Global Entry site to make the appointment as soon as you get the alert. But many people are raving about the app.
- There’s another option, however, go to another location that has appointments available. We live on the west coast, so I searched all locations I could find that were fairly easy to get to and had appointments available. Arizona is pretty easy to get to so we went to Tucson for a long weekend and drove to Douglas. At the time, I had to do all this searching for nearby locations one by one. But now that there’s Appointment Scanner, all you have to do is go to the page that lists all the locations that do interviews. And see what their wait times are.
- If you live on the east coast, your best options right now are Maine, New York, and Minnesota.
- If you live in the midwest, you can go to Texas, New Mexico, Montana, North Dakota, or Michigan.
- If you live on the west coast, you can go to Arizona or Alaska.
- The other option US Customs & Border Control gives, which really isn’t an option if you’re an international traveler: is just to get TSA Pre-Check.
TSA Pre-Check
TSA Pre-Check is for US domestic flights and gets you through the TSA screening process faster. You don’t have to take off your shoes, take out your laptop, etc.. Although we have found this to be highly subjective and dependent on the location and sometimes the agents working the conveyor belt. The requirements for TSA Pre-Check are similar to Global Entry, but the in-person interview can be done more easily:
- Apply online
- Attend the interview once the application is approved (and you can make appointments at Staples)
- Enjoy benefits for 5 years
CLEAR
CLEAR is a private company that collects biometric information and screening so that once you’re signed up, they whiz you past the backlog of people waiting for a CBP agent to check your ID. It costs $189 per year and $60 for each additional member up to a total of 3 people per membership. There are some ways to get discounts (via airline loyalty programs) or free memberships (several high annual fee credit cards).
All three programs together will get you to your destination as quickly as possible. If you live in an area where CLEAR isn’t available at your airport or at which the lines getting to the CBP agent aren’t ridiculously long, then you can skip it. We have found it to be useful. Update 1/29/2024: Recently CLEAR has updated its online system. They sent us repeated emails asking us to upgrade to the new system. So on our trip to Cozumel in December, we stopped by the CLEAR booths and gave it a try. The attendant tried numerous times with different types of IDs and eventually gave up and told us they were having a glitch. We haven’t tried since then but the lines to the CBP agents have been non-existent.
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