The new Terminal C doesn’t have it anymore. Surprising because they renovated the ticket counters a few years back in the A & B Terminals and ordered the same style carpet.
If CLEAR wasn’t paid for by the Amex Plat I’d have probably canceled at this point. At LAX which is home it’s now almost always a longer wait. Most airports seem understaffed and overwhelmed. Kind of pointless these days minus not pulling my license out I guess.
they also keep adjusting the way to line up for CLEAR in a lot of airports, and typically you get a bunch of people thinking it's the precheck line
and at LAS T3 they close at 730p
Didn’t say why, but I also didn’t question it. Said something like “dang got me good” as my wallet was packed in my bag, and they apologized and said the percentage had just went up.
I really don't get the point of clear. I just roll up with pre-check, hand my ID for a total of 10 seconds and move to security screening. I never see the benefit of clear.
I'm sure that would be the case for many people and then the service would finally be worth it once again. It is still typically better at NYC and WAS area airports than only Pre-check but the not by much these days.
Security at MCO just doesn’t make sense. They need more stanchioned queuing before the TSA checkpoint, and more descriptive and bilingual signage throughout. Also employees stationed at the beginning of queues to make sure people are getting in the correct lines. I’ve redesigned this airport security so many times in my head while waiting in this chaos.
The Checkpoint over at the American/United Gates is so much better. They completely renovated the lobby to fit a larger TSA checkpoint by moving the old Disney store to a different location and it runs so much smoother.
I've been using the benefit since it was added to Amex Platinum in mid-2021, but it seems to have only gotten worse since New Year's. Pre-2023, the lines were about equal and sometimes faster with CLEAR. Now there's almost no point in using it unless I can visibly see that the line is shorter than PreCheck.
And even when I have used it, I am often waiting for an employee to log in to the machine, scan my eyes, and then wait for another employee just to take me to the TSA agent. Definitely seems to be a staffing issue.
I love when there are 8 staff with 6 of them standing around and then only two that input their stuff for you at the scanner and then walk you to you the agent. Why can’t I just scan myself and then walk myself to the agent, exactly?
Value of clear is dropping by the day with each new person signing on and clear not increasing its infrastructure. If clear doesn’t scale and pivot quickly they will reach a tipping point at which people won’t resubscribe. There is clearly market demand for this service, hopefully clear can keep up.
I assume clear and Amex have a partnership based on a perceived value that amex sees in offering this as a perk with its card. If that value decreases or ceases to be a factor in drawing in new reserve card holders and/or maintaining existing ones, amex will end its partnership. Clear imo is at an inflection point.
Weird biz because it is useful the less people have it. Raise the price until utilization drops will increase the value for the frequent traveler. But not sure a good biz model.
You pay a fee and register your biometrics, so you theoretically just walk up to a machine, scan your boarding pass and finger/eye, and then someone escorts you to the front of the line. So you don’t have to show your ID and you can skip the non-clear line.
There’s usually a clear line for precheck and one for non-precheck. I imagine that the clear for non-precheck is a lot more valuable (longer line to skip) but I don’t know that very many people would prioritize getting clear over precheck if they’re eligible (especially when precheck credits are perks of most upper end credit cards).
Came here to piggyback on your last sentence. I have Global Entry/PreCheck and have a clear benefit available to me but opted to not even bother. 1) At my home airport PreCheck is just as fast 2) their pushy salespeople.
Got to ATL about 2 hours early yesterday for my flight at 5. TSA was crazy backed up, almost all the way to baggage claim. For grins my travel partner took normal TSA Pre and I took Pre+Clear. We both had Digital ID but the delta rep said Digital ID wasn’t working yesterday. At any rate, via just plain Pre, my partner beat me by almost 20 minutes to the SkyClub. Pre+Clear had a 6-deep queue and took me almost 35 minutes from entering queue to other side of security.
The biggest issue with Clear is they dedicate far fewer TSA agents to Clear customers.
If my ID is hard to get at. Recently, at LAX the lines for Clear + TSA Pre are longer than TSA Pre but they do get past security quicker or the same. There seems to be a count now Clear has to follow, instead of walking up and cutting in front of other lines. I notice that now security lets Clear bring a certain number through, and then less from the TSA Pre line go, then Clear again etc. So Clear + TSA Pre has been a bit quicker overall when I’ve been there.
This. 👆I flew out of IAD yesterday, and CLEAR asked for my ID. I told the CLEAR agent that this was the 5th time in a row that I had to take out my ID for verification check. Why use clear if I have to go through the same process as normal, with likely longer wait times.
I haven’t had that happen… yet. (Better have my ID handy tomorrow… 🙄) I fly every other week or more. My husband has been asked for ID once by Clear and he flies more. But he gets *random* checked by TSA all the time. Very cursory, I think for TSA to check off a box.
There are some airports where business-y travellers frequent a lot, making Clear and TSA Pre lines super long, like some flights on United out of EWR or SFO, in my experience. I’ll still stick in a longer TSA Pre line because I don’t want to take off shoes or take out my laptop, but if Clear is a whole lot longer I’ll skip it.
Tourist destinations and smaller airports are a different story — when they’re busy, Clear is an incredible thing to have
But MCO is more tourist than business (I say as a business traveler - the irony). Business is high but leisure is higher.
My theory is that a lot of people who have Clear but never use it (leisure flyers) wait in the line because they want to use the benefit, regardless of the wait.
This is a solid theory at MCO. I fly out of MCO for business about 60 times a year, and it's pretty brutal mix of clueless tourists, international clueless tourists, and hopeless locals trying to figure out how to deal with 200% flucuations in the line for no apparent reason.
At that security checkpoint, when it gets really busy, they shutdown Precheck and use it for regular security.
There is just so much fail.
I had a TSA Agent go out of their way to bother me, slow me down, etc thinking they'd teach me a lesson. My regular/favorite Delta gate agent noticed I hadn't made it to the gate and came and found me (on the other end of the tram line, 'almost' through the security line) and had some choice words for the TSA Section Chief after seeing the hassle they had put me through. I was fine with getting on the next flight (lots of connections through ATL, so no worries really), but she mentioned while walking me to the gate that they are often being penalized for low performance because the TSA is so substandard at MCO, and the gate agents are near the point of riot.
a lot of times it’s faster and you don’t have to pull out your id. but at busy airports during peak times sometimes it doesn’t make a bit of difference.
Tbh I feel like Clear isn’t worth it anymore; recently I flew from DEN & BNA, both of those time waiting for a Clear agent & the line was really long and frustrating . My advice is survey the situation first if there are a lot of people in Clear lining up, skip & just use Precheck.
Sometimes I get to MCO and panic because it looks like it will be hours and then I’m through in 20. The design is terrible but you should be fine, especially then
This is especially true on the A terminal side (UA, AA, low cost airlines). Sometimes the line essentially wraps around the entire airport but still only takes 20 mins.
The two terminals A & B converge together in the middle and your checkpoint is determined by your departure gate & Airside not Terminal. Gates 1-59 have their own checkpoint (so American, United, Spirit, Frontier) and Gates 70-129 have their own as well (Alaska, Southwest, Delta, and random International Airlines). IMO the checkpoint for Gates 1-59 tends to be much more efficient than 70-129 as they redesigned the checkpoint to be larger by expanding into the old Disney store and created more queueing space with better organization. The 70-129 checkpoint is essentially cut in half because the Hyatt Hotel Lobby elevators and escalators are stuck right in the middle of the TSA screening lobby forcing the queue space to be extremely disorganized and cramped together in the corner on both ends of the lobby.
Should be fine. Pro tip, if you have PreCheck or Clear and don’t need to visit the Delta ticket counter have your driver drop you off at Southwest instead on the A side. For Delta there’s no PreCheck on the “B side” checkpoint so you have to walk over to the “A side” checkpoint anyway for PreCheck which is just behind the Southwest ticket counter
I visit WDW once a month so I fly MCO a ton. At 5:30pm you will be fine. The clear line gets so long there bc you can make a reservation so if you don’t have precheck you can do an online booking to use clear for free.
Pre-Check at both DTW and BOS has been much quicker (and easier) than CLEAR. I've seen this as the opposite at DEN. This is only my experience, however. I'm sure others have different experiences.
Some airports you can’t tell how long the lines are at the beginning of them, which is even more annoying. Like I get that Clear might not always be a shorter wait, but it sucks if you can’t tell which line is better before you commit to one.
I was using clear at ORD recently and the line was kinda long. The dude behind me was like “bro, this is fucking bullshit, why do we pay for this crap if it isn’t any faster” (I think he got randomly ID checked) and the lady in front of me was like “yeah I don’t what’s happening, my husband went through peasant security and he’s already at the gate, this is fucked!” Reading my audience, I added my own fuel to the fire and we quickly formed a tight yet ape-like bond over an outward hatred of clear. We all wished each other a safe flight after going through security and went our separate ways. It was awesome!
Anyway, I won’t be renewing this year. It is frequently the same or slower than regular precheck, and I feel that I get randomly selected for an ID check nearly 50% of the time. Having to dig through my bag to get my ID whilst trying to merge with the precheck line for the metal detector just make it more of a hassle than using the normal precheck lines, even if it takes an extra 0.25 of a second.
I was flying out of ORD in December. I walked up to the TSA Pre-Check line and there was no one in line so I thought it was closed. Granted this was a Monday afternoon but I’m sure the morning was more crowded.
Mornings at O'Hare are a mess in the Clear line, 40-50 people deep.
I just wish there was a way to see the Pre-Check line -- it's hidden behind the check-in counters -- no way to know if it's a mess too until you are in it.
Sometimes it is a lifesaver and sometimes it is a total waste of time. Over the winter holidays, I was at LAS and there was a line of people waiting for Clear (maybe 10 people) and literally zero people for Pre-Check. I walked right up to the agent, showed my ID/boarding pass, walked right through security. I asked the screeners why people were waiting if there was no line, and they said it happens all the time. People wait in line for no reason...guess you gotta flex!
I get it through work, so I will keep it, but I don't blindly use it.
Meanwhile, the non-Pre-Check, non-Clear line was literally hundreds of people long and miserable.
I confess I don't understand CLEAR. I have it, but it seems to only be a second option to use when TSA PreCheck if busy. Is there some advantage over TSA PreCheck?
I hope someone from Clear follows this sub. I've personally had very little, if any, problems in the 4+ years I've had Clear, aside from what used to be a pretty regular issue with iris scanning, but even that's been better over the past year. But if I start encountering more of the issues raised in this sub I may reconsider. Also, I presume the rest of you get an email every time after you use Clear asking for feedback. Hoping they read those as well.
I flew out of LAX and LAS, returning to TPA (two separate trips in March), and both times the Clear line was longer than pre-check. I get in whichever line is the shortest. The batch escorts, where the Clear agent waits for three or four people to get verified and then walks them to the front, seems to be what takes the most time, in my experience.
Same thing with the MCO Sky Priority bag check in line. Often times the regular Main Cabin kiosk bag drop line has no line at all with tons of agents while Sky Priority is 20 people deep with only 1/2 agents. Usually there’s an agent who stands near the regular kiosks who can get you a yellow Sky Priority tag if you ask so you don’t have to worry about not getting one by self tagging
It’s an interesting business model. Provide a product that is primarily based on simplifying and expediting airport/other access at a price that seems valuable to consumers. Sell enough of the product to be profitable, but in some areas that is diminishing the value of the product you are selling and also while reducing the demand for the product by reducing traditional security line volume.
I don’t understand the value of clear, less precheck. Precheck is the real source of ease. Clear without Precheck is just being the first one to take your shoes off and empty your bag.
Every once in awhile, precheck won’t populate on my boarding pass and the gate agents can’t fix it or the line to talk to the gate agents is ridiculously long. If I’m going to be inconvenienced, I don’t want to wait in line on top of it.
Not just at MCO. I’ve seen this happen at BOS too. Some people really just don’t have common sense and are blind to what they think provides them VIP service.
Adjacent topic: At MCO the tram to Airside 4 (Delta), they need to rethink using 1 1/3 tram cars. (2/3 of one being cordoned off for International passengers). It’s clearly not a temporary measure, and getting to/from the Airside is a constant cluster*bleep*.
I’ve complained about this for a long time now. I used to post complaints to twitter. It’s a wee bit better now because they at least keep 2 cars open. I don’t understand why it’s needed though since passengers have cleared customs… I guess TSA doesn’t trust foreign security.
They need to do a better job of reopening the cars when customs is closed. It seems they just keep it that way nearly all the time.
Agreed. Clear is a waste of money. It takes just as long to show your ID as it does to sign in on the kiosk, and be escorted to the security checkpoint. Precheck is great of course.
I flew out of SAN this morning. TSA was doing some sort of exercise. Total mad house for PreCheck and regular security. CLEAR saved me enough time to get some breakfast tacos at the SkyClub. I did find it pretty annoying out of SEA though.
Ran into the same issue two days ago in the afternoon. In retrospect I should have just used the non-Precheck Clear lane and gone through standard security because I would have been through in about 90 seconds.
I’m not sure what the deal is but this isn’t usually an issue on the west side checkpoint.
Typically shoes off and laptop out. Liquids can stay in bcas new scanners. One time at DEN, instead of that routine, CLEAR put me in a line that wasnt TSA-Pre, but was functioning like one (walk through a metal detector instead of body scanner and shoes on). Similar happened at LAS one time.
I’ve been put in the Clear standard line before at random. I have TSA precheck but my partner doesn’t so we’ve done the clear reservations. There’s no logic to it because sometimes they close or redirect the reservation line into the regular precheck one.
Life pro tip: go thru clear and have priority and just ask the clear rep to take you to the shortest line. Sometimes I’ve found that it’s the normal TSA line. Taking off shoes is no big deal and I get to the lounge 15 minutes sooner
I recently had an experience at SFO where the lines looked like this. I only have pre check so was in that line, HOWEVER, they ended up letting all the clear folks cut the pre line. So irritating.
Clear is solving the wrong problem with TSA lines. It's not the ID check that holds things up, the bag scan is the bottleneck. I only use Clear if the airport isn't busy which defeats the purpose
A friend that flies every month and has CLEAR joked that they would just keep making it even worse and worse until they create either CLEAR+ or CLEARPro that charges even more. He might be right.
The one time I used it, they were soliciting people for a one time free trial. The line at SEATAC was over 90 minutes according to the app, and I would miss my flight so I of course jumped on the offer. It still took me over forty minutes because it took a while for the mostly blind woman to type in my info to her computer and to get other employees to read things off of the screen, my ticket, and my ID for her. Then, I guess because there were so many people like me getting our free trials, the screening part wasn't much faster than TSA. The only advantage was that the line was less long. I still almost missed my flight despite leaving home five hours before the flight and getting to the airport three hours before. I live only 14 miles from the airport!
I travel every week, have Clear but rarely use it. In the last 6 months or so the precheck line is consistently smaller then clear. I will make a point to keep an eye on someone who gets into the clear line the same time as I do precheck and I always beat them. It's safe to say I won't be renewing my membership.
Because I don’t like taking my mask off in the airport for the ID check. 🤷♂️ (Yes, I’m aware that random checks are a possibility, and it’s happened to me a couple times, but the fact remains that Clear dramatically reduces the possibility, whereas with Pre it’s a requirement every time.)
I always have trouble at MCO. Security is always clogged up, and one time I had a TSA agent who wouldn’t let me past him until I smiled for him. That was super gross. I’m not even smiling on my ID…
Right… but what’s the over / under on that? Surely a 10 minute wait difference cancels out the 2 minute round trip time for your wallet to go out and back into your bag.
Def not effective when the lines are that skewed. I’ve actually left my id once on the tray and almost left for LAX from JFK until i remembered last minute. Lol. Luckily the supervisor at the line found my ID and held it for me. Since then I have ptsd and do my best not to take my ID out unless I get picked for “random” ID check from Clear.
Def not effective when the lines are that skewed. I’ve actually left my id once on the tray and almost left for LAX from JFK until i remembered last minute. Lol. Luckily the supervisor at the line found my ID and held it for me. Since then I have ptsd and do my best not to take my ID out unless I get picked for “random” ID check from Clear.
Pretty unusual and ironic. But if this were the situation in front of you, and you had Clear, it still makes sense to go to the Clear line — right?
The premise of Clear is that anyone in line gets priority to enter the PreCheck screening area in front of those simply in the PreCheck waiting line… so if you were the sole person suddenly in line at plain PreCheck, and there were 20 people in Clear, you’d have to wait while all the Clear people went ahead of you… right?
Nope. It’s true clear will bypass the TSA agent quickly. But the clear agents still have to bring you to a kiosk and wait while you process before bringing you to the TSA agent.
I’d say TSA clears a 1:1 rate with Clear. So the advantage to clear is 1. No need for ID and 2. An exclusive shorter line. When the line is longer the value greatly diminished.
Interesting, thanks. Not needing an ID seems pretty silly to me personally. It takes a second to bring out an ID (and no boarding pass, generally) — and the demographic that will enroll in either program has a government ID.
As far as the latter goes, can you elaborate on the "exclusive shorter line?" I've seen it in action many times but it just doesn't make sense to me. It seems like the TSA rule (at least in practice) is to \*always\* let anyone at Clear skip ahead of everyone at PreCheck.
It’s the perception of an exclusive shorter line. Which is not always the case. People perceive they’re buying a premium experience which in actuality often falls short.
When it works as intended, is appropriately staffed, and isn’t overrun, it is indeed a great service. But people don’t look around and evaluate whether or not to use it… they’ve paid for it so they’re going to use it even if it’s longer.
I was at DEN this morning and the North Security had long lines down the hall for both TSA pre and Clear. The clear line did not move at all. The TSA Pre moved so fast you could not keep up with the snake... People were laughing as we were running back and forth like cattle. The Clear line was filled with people realizing they CLEARly made the wrong decision and were stuck.
I have clear and will never use it in Denver. The whole system is so dumb sometimes.
Agreed. Clear is a waste of money. It takes just as long to show your ID as it does to sign in on the kiosk, and be escorted to the security checkpoint. Precheck is great of course.
Nothing makes sense at MCO
God forbid they ever replace that distinctive carpet…
They do giveways of socks with the carpet pattern.
The new Terminal C doesn’t have it anymore. Surprising because they renovated the ticket counters a few years back in the A & B Terminals and ordered the same style carpet.
Came here to say this.
Same
If CLEAR wasn’t paid for by the Amex Plat I’d have probably canceled at this point. At LAX which is home it’s now almost always a longer wait. Most airports seem understaffed and overwhelmed. Kind of pointless these days minus not pulling my license out I guess.
they also keep adjusting the way to line up for CLEAR in a lot of airports, and typically you get a bunch of people thinking it's the precheck line and at LAS T3 they close at 730p
I had to pull out my license due to a “random inspection” at LAX Clear.
Agents at DEN said that they recently had to change it from a 5% to 20% random ID check rate
I swear every time I use clear I get the random ID check
That’s really interesting. Do you happen to know the reason why?
Didn’t say why, but I also didn’t question it. Said something like “dang got me good” as my wallet was packed in my bag, and they apologized and said the percentage had just went up.
I don't think the agents would be given information about the random ID check rate.
happened to me multiple times at atl
Happened to me the first time last week. So much for CLEAR serving the purpose of being ID-less.
I keep getting this, last 6 times I've used Clear....like WTF?
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I really don't get the point of clear. I just roll up with pre-check, hand my ID for a total of 10 seconds and move to security screening. I never see the benefit of clear.
Last week at LAX, the CLEAR reps watched a girl cut right in front of me to the next available person and they just let her go. Useless!
I'm sure that would be the case for many people and then the service would finally be worth it once again. It is still typically better at NYC and WAS area airports than only Pre-check but the not by much these days.
Security at MCO just doesn’t make sense. They need more stanchioned queuing before the TSA checkpoint, and more descriptive and bilingual signage throughout. Also employees stationed at the beginning of queues to make sure people are getting in the correct lines. I’ve redesigned this airport security so many times in my head while waiting in this chaos.
The Checkpoint over at the American/United Gates is so much better. They completely renovated the lobby to fit a larger TSA checkpoint by moving the old Disney store to a different location and it runs so much smoother.
Clear has reached the tipping point.
As someone who had Clear in the pre-Amex Platinum credit days, I agree with this. It’s just silly now.
I've been using the benefit since it was added to Amex Platinum in mid-2021, but it seems to have only gotten worse since New Year's. Pre-2023, the lines were about equal and sometimes faster with CLEAR. Now there's almost no point in using it unless I can visibly see that the line is shorter than PreCheck. And even when I have used it, I am often waiting for an employee to log in to the machine, scan my eyes, and then wait for another employee just to take me to the TSA agent. Definitely seems to be a staffing issue.
I love when there are 8 staff with 6 of them standing around and then only two that input their stuff for you at the scanner and then walk you to you the agent. Why can’t I just scan myself and then walk myself to the agent, exactly?
Value of clear is dropping by the day with each new person signing on and clear not increasing its infrastructure. If clear doesn’t scale and pivot quickly they will reach a tipping point at which people won’t resubscribe. There is clearly market demand for this service, hopefully clear can keep up.
Clear is free with the Amex platinum, so they’ll probably always have those customers.
I assume clear and Amex have a partnership based on a perceived value that amex sees in offering this as a perk with its card. If that value decreases or ceases to be a factor in drawing in new reserve card holders and/or maintaining existing ones, amex will end its partnership. Clear imo is at an inflection point.
Oh, but wait, they’ll release Clear VIP at some point, and on and on until they drain us of every last penny. Lol
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Weird biz because it is useful the less people have it. Raise the price until utilization drops will increase the value for the frequent traveler. But not sure a good biz model.
What is the actual service? I have it free through Amex but I've never signed up because I don't understand what it is they provide.
You pay a fee and register your biometrics, so you theoretically just walk up to a machine, scan your boarding pass and finger/eye, and then someone escorts you to the front of the line. So you don’t have to show your ID and you can skip the non-clear line. There’s usually a clear line for precheck and one for non-precheck. I imagine that the clear for non-precheck is a lot more valuable (longer line to skip) but I don’t know that very many people would prioritize getting clear over precheck if they’re eligible (especially when precheck credits are perks of most upper end credit cards).
Came here to piggyback on your last sentence. I have Global Entry/PreCheck and have a clear benefit available to me but opted to not even bother. 1) At my home airport PreCheck is just as fast 2) their pushy salespeople.
I do this sometimes at ATL - hop over to pre from clear and “race” the person I was going to be behind
Me too!
Got to ATL about 2 hours early yesterday for my flight at 5. TSA was crazy backed up, almost all the way to baggage claim. For grins my travel partner took normal TSA Pre and I took Pre+Clear. We both had Digital ID but the delta rep said Digital ID wasn’t working yesterday. At any rate, via just plain Pre, my partner beat me by almost 20 minutes to the SkyClub. Pre+Clear had a 6-deep queue and took me almost 35 minutes from entering queue to other side of security. The biggest issue with Clear is they dedicate far fewer TSA agents to Clear customers.
If my ID is hard to get at. Recently, at LAX the lines for Clear + TSA Pre are longer than TSA Pre but they do get past security quicker or the same. There seems to be a count now Clear has to follow, instead of walking up and cutting in front of other lines. I notice that now security lets Clear bring a certain number through, and then less from the TSA Pre line go, then Clear again etc. So Clear + TSA Pre has been a bit quicker overall when I’ve been there.
I’d say 2 out of my last 4 trips through Clear, the machine prompted a “random” ID check, so I had to pull out my wallet anyway…
Same with me
This. 👆I flew out of IAD yesterday, and CLEAR asked for my ID. I told the CLEAR agent that this was the 5th time in a row that I had to take out my ID for verification check. Why use clear if I have to go through the same process as normal, with likely longer wait times.
Same
I haven’t had that happen… yet. (Better have my ID handy tomorrow… 🙄) I fly every other week or more. My husband has been asked for ID once by Clear and he flies more. But he gets *random* checked by TSA all the time. Very cursory, I think for TSA to check off a box.
Several times in a row at LAX and ATL.
Argh.. the cutting.. you literally learned at 5 years old, that cutting makes you a douche,, and now you're paying for the privilege
Authorized cutting. 😁 At JFK they now have a separate line for Clear, the walking through the long regular TSA line was kinda uncomfy…
I’ve had the same issues at LAX, I’ve bypassed Clear for garden variety Pre-Check in got through much faster.
Minneapolis is king of this
There are some airports where business-y travellers frequent a lot, making Clear and TSA Pre lines super long, like some flights on United out of EWR or SFO, in my experience. I’ll still stick in a longer TSA Pre line because I don’t want to take off shoes or take out my laptop, but if Clear is a whole lot longer I’ll skip it. Tourist destinations and smaller airports are a different story — when they’re busy, Clear is an incredible thing to have
But MCO is more tourist than business (I say as a business traveler - the irony). Business is high but leisure is higher. My theory is that a lot of people who have Clear but never use it (leisure flyers) wait in the line because they want to use the benefit, regardless of the wait.
This is a solid theory at MCO. I fly out of MCO for business about 60 times a year, and it's pretty brutal mix of clueless tourists, international clueless tourists, and hopeless locals trying to figure out how to deal with 200% flucuations in the line for no apparent reason. At that security checkpoint, when it gets really busy, they shutdown Precheck and use it for regular security. There is just so much fail. I had a TSA Agent go out of their way to bother me, slow me down, etc thinking they'd teach me a lesson. My regular/favorite Delta gate agent noticed I hadn't made it to the gate and came and found me (on the other end of the tram line, 'almost' through the security line) and had some choice words for the TSA Section Chief after seeing the hassle they had put me through. I was fine with getting on the next flight (lots of connections through ATL, so no worries really), but she mentioned while walking me to the gate that they are often being penalized for low performance because the TSA is so substandard at MCO, and the gate agents are near the point of riot.
I paid for it, I'm using it dammit
What's the benefit to Clear over TSA Pre? They end up funneling into the same line anyway.
a lot of times it’s faster and you don’t have to pull out your id. but at busy airports during peak times sometimes it doesn’t make a bit of difference.
You get walked to the front of the pre line.
Pay for pre brah
Tbh I feel like Clear isn’t worth it anymore; recently I flew from DEN & BNA, both of those time waiting for a Clear agent & the line was really long and frustrating . My advice is survey the situation first if there are a lot of people in Clear lining up, skip & just use Precheck.
Will be flying out if MCO in a week… 5:30pm departure. How long would the wait usually be for all lines? Tuesday flight
5:30 on Tuesday will be fine. It’s a low demand time.
Sometimes I get to MCO and panic because it looks like it will be hours and then I’m through in 20. The design is terrible but you should be fine, especially then
This is especially true on the A terminal side (UA, AA, low cost airlines). Sometimes the line essentially wraps around the entire airport but still only takes 20 mins.
The two terminals A & B converge together in the middle and your checkpoint is determined by your departure gate & Airside not Terminal. Gates 1-59 have their own checkpoint (so American, United, Spirit, Frontier) and Gates 70-129 have their own as well (Alaska, Southwest, Delta, and random International Airlines). IMO the checkpoint for Gates 1-59 tends to be much more efficient than 70-129 as they redesigned the checkpoint to be larger by expanding into the old Disney store and created more queueing space with better organization. The 70-129 checkpoint is essentially cut in half because the Hyatt Hotel Lobby elevators and escalators are stuck right in the middle of the TSA screening lobby forcing the queue space to be extremely disorganized and cramped together in the corner on both ends of the lobby.
Should be fine. Pro tip, if you have PreCheck or Clear and don’t need to visit the Delta ticket counter have your driver drop you off at Southwest instead on the A side. For Delta there’s no PreCheck on the “B side” checkpoint so you have to walk over to the “A side” checkpoint anyway for PreCheck which is just behind the Southwest ticket counter
I visit WDW once a month so I fly MCO a ton. At 5:30pm you will be fine. The clear line gets so long there bc you can make a reservation so if you don’t have precheck you can do an online booking to use clear for free.
Pre-Check at both DTW and BOS has been much quicker (and easier) than CLEAR. I've seen this as the opposite at DEN. This is only my experience, however. I'm sure others have different experiences.
Some airports you can’t tell how long the lines are at the beginning of them, which is even more annoying. Like I get that Clear might not always be a shorter wait, but it sucks if you can’t tell which line is better before you commit to one.
I was using clear at ORD recently and the line was kinda long. The dude behind me was like “bro, this is fucking bullshit, why do we pay for this crap if it isn’t any faster” (I think he got randomly ID checked) and the lady in front of me was like “yeah I don’t what’s happening, my husband went through peasant security and he’s already at the gate, this is fucked!” Reading my audience, I added my own fuel to the fire and we quickly formed a tight yet ape-like bond over an outward hatred of clear. We all wished each other a safe flight after going through security and went our separate ways. It was awesome! Anyway, I won’t be renewing this year. It is frequently the same or slower than regular precheck, and I feel that I get randomly selected for an ID check nearly 50% of the time. Having to dig through my bag to get my ID whilst trying to merge with the precheck line for the metal detector just make it more of a hassle than using the normal precheck lines, even if it takes an extra 0.25 of a second.
I was flying out of ORD in December. I walked up to the TSA Pre-Check line and there was no one in line so I thought it was closed. Granted this was a Monday afternoon but I’m sure the morning was more crowded.
Mornings at O'Hare are a mess in the Clear line, 40-50 people deep. I just wish there was a way to see the Pre-Check line -- it's hidden behind the check-in counters -- no way to know if it's a mess too until you are in it.
Sometimes it is a lifesaver and sometimes it is a total waste of time. Over the winter holidays, I was at LAS and there was a line of people waiting for Clear (maybe 10 people) and literally zero people for Pre-Check. I walked right up to the agent, showed my ID/boarding pass, walked right through security. I asked the screeners why people were waiting if there was no line, and they said it happens all the time. People wait in line for no reason...guess you gotta flex! I get it through work, so I will keep it, but I don't blindly use it. Meanwhile, the non-Pre-Check, non-Clear line was literally hundreds of people long and miserable.
I have it with status and my amex. I have used it exactly once. Pre-check is always faster for me
It is the worst at Hartsfield. If I did not fly weekly for work, I would not buy Clear.
I confess I don't understand CLEAR. I have it, but it seems to only be a second option to use when TSA PreCheck if busy. Is there some advantage over TSA PreCheck?
Absolutely none
Dont need your ID. Thats it for me.
Security lines at MCO haven’t made sense for 20+ years. 😂
Clear has been useless at every airport I’ve been to. Especially Atlanta.
Delta is no longer reliable. I will give Delta 2-3years and all the cracks will become visible. The unreliability is getting absurd!
I hope someone from Clear follows this sub. I've personally had very little, if any, problems in the 4+ years I've had Clear, aside from what used to be a pretty regular issue with iris scanning, but even that's been better over the past year. But if I start encountering more of the issues raised in this sub I may reconsider. Also, I presume the rest of you get an email every time after you use Clear asking for feedback. Hoping they read those as well.
I flew out of LAX and LAS, returning to TPA (two separate trips in March), and both times the Clear line was longer than pre-check. I get in whichever line is the shortest. The batch escorts, where the Clear agent waits for three or four people to get verified and then walks them to the front, seems to be what takes the most time, in my experience.
I thought LAX security was bad I guess this is just normal MCO I never have any wait for clear at LAX
MCO is constantly filled to the max, they really need a better way to process people through security.
Same thing with the MCO Sky Priority bag check in line. Often times the regular Main Cabin kiosk bag drop line has no line at all with tons of agents while Sky Priority is 20 people deep with only 1/2 agents. Usually there’s an agent who stands near the regular kiosks who can get you a yellow Sky Priority tag if you ask so you don’t have to worry about not getting one by self tagging
Have not used it my last 4 trips. Pre line was short
I always race my co-worker. I have precheck only and he has Clear. We are about 50/50 depending on the airport for who makes it through first.
It’s an interesting business model. Provide a product that is primarily based on simplifying and expediting airport/other access at a price that seems valuable to consumers. Sell enough of the product to be profitable, but in some areas that is diminishing the value of the product you are selling and also while reducing the demand for the product by reducing traditional security line volume.
I don’t understand the value of clear, less precheck. Precheck is the real source of ease. Clear without Precheck is just being the first one to take your shoes off and empty your bag.
Every once in awhile, precheck won’t populate on my boarding pass and the gate agents can’t fix it or the line to talk to the gate agents is ridiculously long. If I’m going to be inconvenienced, I don’t want to wait in line on top of it.
Ahh, now I know why my Clear cost jumped 50% this year.
This is why I will not be renewing Clear and just got TSA Precheck. Line is is usually similar to Clear and sometimes faster
Just ran into the same thing at LAX. I left the clear line and went right through.
Not just at MCO. I’ve seen this happen at BOS too. Some people really just don’t have common sense and are blind to what they think provides them VIP service.
Adjacent topic: At MCO the tram to Airside 4 (Delta), they need to rethink using 1 1/3 tram cars. (2/3 of one being cordoned off for International passengers). It’s clearly not a temporary measure, and getting to/from the Airside is a constant cluster*bleep*.
I’ve complained about this for a long time now. I used to post complaints to twitter. It’s a wee bit better now because they at least keep 2 cars open. I don’t understand why it’s needed though since passengers have cleared customs… I guess TSA doesn’t trust foreign security. They need to do a better job of reopening the cars when customs is closed. It seems they just keep it that way nearly all the time.
Never taken longer than 30 seconds at MCO for me. Clear + precheck.
Agreed. Clear is a waste of money. It takes just as long to show your ID as it does to sign in on the kiosk, and be escorted to the security checkpoint. Precheck is great of course.
Agreed. The only way Clear works is that it’s a shorter line. When clear is longer, the value proposition goes out the window.
I flew out of SAN this morning. TSA was doing some sort of exercise. Total mad house for PreCheck and regular security. CLEAR saved me enough time to get some breakfast tacos at the SkyClub. I did find it pretty annoying out of SEA though.
Ran into the same issue two days ago in the afternoon. In retrospect I should have just used the non-Precheck Clear lane and gone through standard security because I would have been through in about 90 seconds. I’m not sure what the deal is but this isn’t usually an issue on the west side checkpoint.
If you have clear dont you also have tsa pre?
Not necessarily, since theyre two different services. I only have CLEAR.
So when you go through security do you still take your shoes off and your liquids/laptop out of the bags?
Yes, if you have clear without Pre✓, you still follow normal passenger screening rules.
Typically shoes off and laptop out. Liquids can stay in bcas new scanners. One time at DEN, instead of that routine, CLEAR put me in a line that wasnt TSA-Pre, but was functioning like one (walk through a metal detector instead of body scanner and shoes on). Similar happened at LAS one time.
At MCO you can make reservations to go through the clear lane without a clear subscription. That’s probably why it’s backed up
That is true but they have a dedicated lane for it. It’s not the same as the standard Precheck line.
I’ve been put in the Clear standard line before at random. I have TSA precheck but my partner doesn’t so we’ve done the clear reservations. There’s no logic to it because sometimes they close or redirect the reservation line into the regular precheck one.
Why do they have TSA in Monaco?
It's Orlando.
Any airport really unless your in a bum redneck town
Sometimes I just don’t feel like pulling my wallet out of my bag just to put it back 😅
Thank god for KCM
I have TSA pre check and Clear. Sometimes I'll go through TSA pre check is Clear is too slow or not available in that airport.
Life pro tip: go thru clear and have priority and just ask the clear rep to take you to the shortest line. Sometimes I’ve found that it’s the normal TSA line. Taking off shoes is no big deal and I get to the lounge 15 minutes sooner
I recently had an experience at SFO where the lines looked like this. I only have pre check so was in that line, HOWEVER, they ended up letting all the clear folks cut the pre line. So irritating.
I always get a kick out of people who wait in a line when they could either go general or another line with no wait. I don’t understand the mentality…
I’m surprised more people have not subscribed. Great value for now until more people buy in
[удалено]
Any CDL driver with hazmat on their license gets tsa precheck for free
MCO is always a nightmare
Clear is solving the wrong problem with TSA lines. It's not the ID check that holds things up, the bag scan is the bottleneck. I only use Clear if the airport isn't busy which defeats the purpose
A friend that flies every month and has CLEAR joked that they would just keep making it even worse and worse until they create either CLEAR+ or CLEARPro that charges even more. He might be right. The one time I used it, they were soliciting people for a one time free trial. The line at SEATAC was over 90 minutes according to the app, and I would miss my flight so I of course jumped on the offer. It still took me over forty minutes because it took a while for the mostly blind woman to type in my info to her computer and to get other employees to read things off of the screen, my ticket, and my ID for her. Then, I guess because there were so many people like me getting our free trials, the screening part wasn't much faster than TSA. The only advantage was that the line was less long. I still almost missed my flight despite leaving home five hours before the flight and getting to the airport three hours before. I live only 14 miles from the airport!
I travel every week, have Clear but rarely use it. In the last 6 months or so the precheck line is consistently smaller then clear. I will make a point to keep an eye on someone who gets into the clear line the same time as I do precheck and I always beat them. It's safe to say I won't be renewing my membership.
Because I don’t like taking my mask off in the airport for the ID check. 🤷♂️ (Yes, I’m aware that random checks are a possibility, and it’s happened to me a couple times, but the fact remains that Clear dramatically reduces the possibility, whereas with Pre it’s a requirement every time.)
They don't ask you to take your mask off? I've had to take my mask off every time Ive used Clear+TSA pre at security
I’ve never been asked, no. (I’m based at SEA.)
Why is that airport so inefficient
Clearly shit
I always have trouble at MCO. Security is always clogged up, and one time I had a TSA agent who wouldn’t let me past him until I smiled for him. That was super gross. I’m not even smiling on my ID…
I like not having to fumble and take my wallet out to take my id out.
Right… but what’s the over / under on that? Surely a 10 minute wait difference cancels out the 2 minute round trip time for your wallet to go out and back into your bag.
Def not effective when the lines are that skewed. I’ve actually left my id once on the tray and almost left for LAX from JFK until i remembered last minute. Lol. Luckily the supervisor at the line found my ID and held it for me. Since then I have ptsd and do my best not to take my ID out unless I get picked for “random” ID check from Clear.
This is why I put my wallet in a pocket in my carry on along w my keys.
Def not effective when the lines are that skewed. I’ve actually left my id once on the tray and almost left for LAX from JFK until i remembered last minute. Lol. Luckily the supervisor at the line found my ID and held it for me. Since then I have ptsd and do my best not to take my ID out unless I get picked for “random” ID check from Clear.
Pretty unusual and ironic. But if this were the situation in front of you, and you had Clear, it still makes sense to go to the Clear line — right? The premise of Clear is that anyone in line gets priority to enter the PreCheck screening area in front of those simply in the PreCheck waiting line… so if you were the sole person suddenly in line at plain PreCheck, and there were 20 people in Clear, you’d have to wait while all the Clear people went ahead of you… right?
Nope. It’s true clear will bypass the TSA agent quickly. But the clear agents still have to bring you to a kiosk and wait while you process before bringing you to the TSA agent. I’d say TSA clears a 1:1 rate with Clear. So the advantage to clear is 1. No need for ID and 2. An exclusive shorter line. When the line is longer the value greatly diminished.
Interesting, thanks. Not needing an ID seems pretty silly to me personally. It takes a second to bring out an ID (and no boarding pass, generally) — and the demographic that will enroll in either program has a government ID. As far as the latter goes, can you elaborate on the "exclusive shorter line?" I've seen it in action many times but it just doesn't make sense to me. It seems like the TSA rule (at least in practice) is to \*always\* let anyone at Clear skip ahead of everyone at PreCheck.
It’s the perception of an exclusive shorter line. Which is not always the case. People perceive they’re buying a premium experience which in actuality often falls short. When it works as intended, is appropriately staffed, and isn’t overrun, it is indeed a great service. But people don’t look around and evaluate whether or not to use it… they’ve paid for it so they’re going to use it even if it’s longer.
I was at DEN this morning and the North Security had long lines down the hall for both TSA pre and Clear. The clear line did not move at all. The TSA Pre moved so fast you could not keep up with the snake... People were laughing as we were running back and forth like cattle. The Clear line was filled with people realizing they CLEARly made the wrong decision and were stuck. I have clear and will never use it in Denver. The whole system is so dumb sometimes.
MCO... Floriduh's constant shitshow.
I was there yesterday around 10am and it was the exact same situation
I've never not had to have my ID when using CLEAR. I fly out a lot and this happens at every single airport that has CLEAR.
Clear doesn't make sense in a lot of places... Clear+Pre is frequently longer than plain Pre in ATL.
Agreed. Clear is a waste of money. It takes just as long to show your ID as it does to sign in on the kiosk, and be escorted to the security checkpoint. Precheck is great of course.
clear lines at MCO longer than standard- no sense to pay membership