learned this mornnig that part of the TSA fee

[Annie G]

I messed up coming home from Arizona. I thought my water bottle was empty -- was going to fill it past security. But it turned out it had not been emptied the last time I used it. I lost my favorite water bottle this way :(  (Not enough time to empty it and go back through security. We were running late for the airplane for once because we went to the airport with in-laws and spent time with them until we HAD to go through security. And I didn't even think about calling and handing the water bottle to them. Not sure if ti would have been allowed or not.)

 

That's too bad- every time I go through security I see them throw contraband in a trash can that's right beside the TSA agent. They could have let you dump the water from the bottle.  I've seen them dump liquids into it and give back the empty bottle to be refilled on the other side.  Sounds like your TSA agent was on a power trip. 

[Luckymama]

Ok.  I have the soonest-available appointment, on July 11.  What are the chances I'll have Precheck before our flight on the 19th?  (I'll probably try to do walk-in some time this week, at a center that's not at the airport, but I'm not holding my breath.  Plus I'm freaking out that my name will be an issue, where my first name has a space in it on some documents but not on my birth certificate.  I don't have a current passport; ugh.)

 

This is way worse than the DMV even though I woke up this morning worrying about non-driver IDs and trying to figure out how to prove address for my boys who don't have passports and don't get mail.  I need two forms for address and my parent driver license only counts for one.

  

IIRC, you get the precheck approval pretty quickly.  We got ours pretty soon after they opened it up, though. The hard part is that if you've already bought plane tickets, you'll probably have to call the airline directly to get it added. As it stands, we have had to get it added at the counter when we've checked in luggage once because it didn't actually get on the boarding passes. It's not a separate ID or anything that you can control using-it has to be added at the airline's end.

 

  

My update:  we have our appt times in July and that might be ok (barely) as I was told it usually takes less than 5 days after the appt to be able to get the number online.  Dd will be flying 6 days after the appt.

 

I went to a TSA location not at the airport to see what walk-in wait times were like.  Ugh.  It was 9:15 am, just after opening, and the lady told me it would likely take all day until 6 pm, as there were 15 walk-ins to squeeze in among the regular appts.  It was a super-small office.  She was told that the main airport location has stopped accepting walk-ins.  Both locations are a 45-min drive, though I may try again in a week or two.  I keep hoping this demand will die down at some point.

 

Dd15 will be flying alone for the first time though we haven't booked the ticket yet.  I was about to buy the ticket on Southwest (as United charges an unaccompanied minor fee), but unfortunately, the KTN cannot added to an existing Southwest reservation, at least according to the Southwest website.  The rest of us will be flying two days later on United but we can add the KTN to existing reservations.  Now I'm looking at Delta, the only other airline with a nonstop flight that fits the general timeframe and whether the KTN can be added is vague.  My head hurts.

 

ETA, on the one hand, dh flew yesterday afternoon and while he went thru pecheck, he thought the regular security line looked about 15-20 min wait.  On the other hand, I read a news article today on this TSA that predicted July would be the busiest month ever out of our home airport.  Awesome.

Dh walked into the closest non-airport location at 7am last Wednesday. He had to wait 25 minutes (6 people ahead). Dd and I walked in last Thursday also at opening and only had to wait 10 minutes. The process took just a few minutes, probably because we had passports instead of birth certificates and licenses/IDs.

 

Within *48 hours* dd and I received the emails of approval, with links to retrive our KTN! Dh hadn't received his by the time we left for the airport very early Monday morning, so we resigned ourselves to the BWI security line. When he pulled up his texted Delta boarding pass, the precheck notification was there.

 

For flying Delta, there is a place to add the KTN when checking in, just under the person's name (I believe). You could check your online FF account to see if can be added there. Ours now say something like "KTN saved" so we shouldn't have to add it again when flying Delta.

 

Btw the security line at BWI was easily 30 minutes long at 6am on Memorial Day. We had to wait for one person ahead of us in the TSA precheck line :D