Global Entry

When I got mine several years ago I watched the appointment schedule daily and was able to move my appointment up by months.

You don't indicate where you're from in your profile so not sure if it may be possible for your wife to go to another interview center for a closer time if she needs to travel before then.

My husband and I both applied at the beginning of this year and we weren’t given an appointment time. Instead we were told that we could finish the process at most international airports upon our return from our next international trip. Which we did at LAX upon our return from Milan this past April. For that particular entry it actually took us longer to go through line because of the interview; but when we returned from Japan last month through PDX it was so nice and quick.

And.....at the end of the rainbow.......last month, returning from Barcelona to Oakland (with three other international flights having landed within 10 minutes of our Norwegian Air Shuttle flight).....there were exactly a million people in line for passport control and four in the Global Entry line. See that smile on my face?

We just got TSA Preferred, and then I read that Global Entry includes TSA Preferred. Is there a discount to Global Entry if you already have TSA Preferred?

Is there a discount to Global Entry if you already have TSA Preferred?

(I assume you mean TSA PreCheck?)

Unfortunately, no there's no discount for Global Entry if you already have PreCheck, so you have to cough up the $100 GE application fee even if you already have PreCheck. It's why I think that in most cases (unless the traveler really does very few international trips) it makes sense to pay the $15 premium for GE, to get both GE and PreCheck in one.

But you know what's even better? Financially speaking, the best program to apply for is Nexus (US/Canadian description). For US$50, you get Global Entry benefits, expedited entry into Canada and use of trusted security lanes in both countries (PreCheck in the USA and CATSA Trusted Traveller lines in Canada) -- so more benefits for less cost.

In other words, it's basically getting the equivalent of PreCheck and Global Entry but for both Canada and the USA, and to top it off for half the cost of Global Entry.

The catch is that you have to interview with both US and Canadian border authorities at an enrollment center (in the same way that you have to do an interview with US CBP for Global Entry), and all the enrollment centers are either in major Canadian airports and cities or US locations right on the northern border -- think International Falls (MN), Pembina (ND), Blaine (WA), though there are centers in Detroit and Niagara Falls.

So if you're not already located close to the US/Canada border, it's probably not convenient for you, in which case I think Global Entry is then the best deal. (For Nexus, you also obviously have to be admissible to Canada and to satisfy both US and Canadian authorities, which might be a problem for some.)

I just renewed my Global Entry, and expected that the renewal process would take months....I received the notification of my renewal within three days, and my new card within a week.

We applied at the same time, August 29 and were both preliminarily approved on September 2. We scheduled an interview but the next available appointment in San Francisco was January 2020. Luckily we were returning from an international flight on October 14 which had a connection in Detroit so we asked for an on the spot interview after clearing immigration. It was about a 15 minute process for us and our cards arrived about a week later. In our case we did everything on the same day and all of our subsequent steps were very timely. We are so thankful we didn’t have to wait for a January interview and make a 2 hour round trip to San Francisco for a 10 minute interview! Our airline affiliated credit card refunded our $100 fee.

My sister-in-law from the Midwest got a quick interview in Los Angeles and breezed through that off site interview in about 5 minutes this morning. Her quickest and nearest appointment time in her midwestern state was late January. She just happened to be coming out to California for a visit so scheduled her interview with about a one week lead time for today. Los Angeles (LAX) has moved their appointment interview locations to an off site, but nearby location. Fortunately her son was able to drive her to the interview then then terminal for her flight home.

Willy, your wife can go online to the appointment website and look for openings as often as she wants to because people change their interview appointments all the time. It is worth spending the time to do this 15-20 minutes at a time constantly refreshing the page looking for a newly released appointment time.

Depending upon where you are, there may be more than one interview location which increases her chances of getting an appointment even that much sooner.

Upthread, someone talked about “TSA preferred”. There is no “TSA preferred”. What you mean is TSA Pre-Check. When you pay the $100 for Global Entry, TSA Pre-check is included. It is not the other way around unfortunately.

Thanks for the comments about the possibility of moving the interview up, but luckily, our next flight isn't until late March 2020, so no worries.

I can add to the cancelled appointment thread. When we completed our on the spot interview last month in Detroit I asked the agent if he had access to cancel our January 2020 appointments or if we should go online and do it ourselves. He just waved his hand and said don’t bother...That bothered me because I know people are trying to get these elusive spots. I may go online today and see if it somehow got unscheduled once we were officially in the Global Entry system of if I’m able to release our two January appointments.

For renewals: I had the same experience as did Pat when I renewed my Global Entry. My sister and I applied online together in early September. I received my new card within two weeks of applying and she is still waiting for her 'approval' and card. There is just no way of predicting how long it will take. As Willy advises, do not wait until the last minute to renew your membership.

I forgot about renewing and my expiration date is now. I asked the Global entry folks and they said since I have renewed and am waiting for approval, my previous expiration date has been extended a year. Was also told this was posted in several news papers, but have not seen anything in print. The extension is only given IF you have paid the renewal fee.

FYI, there's a Nexus enrollment center at Boeing Field in Seattle.

Mark, I have seen several articles supporting what you have been told, so I think you can relax. Also, as I posted a few days ago, my renewal came through within a week.
Good luck and safe travels!

My husband and I just applied. We are pending review of our application. Hope we are good to go by end of April. I can’t imagine there would be a huge wait in little ol’ Anchorage.

When we went for our interview, we got there about an hour early. There were six people scheduled ahead of us, none of whom showed up, so they took us right away. They told us this was very common.

I logged in to my account yesterday and saw that there was no way to cancel the January 2020 appointments we’d made. I used the FAQ to Dashboard and didn’t see a path any longer. So there is another gap in the system or I’m hoping that once a person has Global Entry their future appointment is automatically cancelled but if Stan’s experience is typical I think there are just holes all over the appointment system.

One thought that may help. You can do your interview at any port of entry. Most people think of only airports. If you have a seaport, land border crossing or even rail hub, nearby that serves as a port of entry, there will be CBP officers who can conduct your in-person interview. Since most people don't consider those as options, the waiting list may be nothing.

"One thought that may help. You can do your interview at any port of entry. Most people think of only airports. If you have a seaport, land border crossing or even rail hub, nearby that serves as a port of entry, there will be CBP officers who can conduct your in-person interview."

In my experience this is not entirely true. There are border crossings in Idaho at Porthill and Eastport but neither are on the list for Global Entry interviews. When I was exploring options a few years ago when I got mine I checked to see. There used to be a CBP interview place in Spokane (at a truck entry port) but it stopped doing interviews as well. In fact, the nearest locations for a border crossing interview were in Western Washington at Blaine (I5) or Montana on the I15 port of entry at Sweetgrass in spite of the fact that there are a number of border crossings in both Washington and Montana.

I'd check this before you go. I did not drive the 3 hours north to the border crossing to check and see if they would do one anyway so no idea if they would do the interview if you showed up. They have to have the computer stuff to scan in your fingerprints and add the information to the chip in your passport.

Link to the GE enrollment sites:
https://www.cbp.gov/travel/trusted-traveler-programs/global-entry/enrollment-centers#

Even though the nearest interview site (SFO) is only an hour away by efficient public transit, we are just doing Enrollment on Arrival on our way home. When we applied and got conditional approval (August) there were no interview slots available before our travel date in December and this way seems like less hassle. Of course, this means we get photos taken after a 15-hour trip ... but we look that way every time we enter the U.S.
Will report back on the process.

you guys are lucky. I applied for Global Entry 4 months ago and I am still in pending status. i.e. I can't even schedule my interview yet. And even once that gets resolved I have been told there is a 2 year waiting period for an interview at DFW airport. If I had known it was going to be this delayed I would have just gotten pre-check for my domestic flights and used the mobile passport app for my international flights.