[msandford]

So significant that my mother who has flown a total of no more than 30,000 miles in her whole life (spread out over no fewer than eight airlines) has pre-check, gifted to her by one airline for no discernible reason. She was very pleased to get it of course, but the "significance" of the background check is highly questionable in my opinion.

[ubernostrum]

Pre was rolled out like this:

Initially there were two large groups of people who got Pre. One group was people who were already enrolled in another trusted-traveller program like NEXUS or Global Entry (I have Pre courtesy of Global Entry, for example), presumably because they'd already been through background checks -- potentially more rigorous ones than Pre strictly required -- and thus were deemed a useful and trustworthy pilot group. The other group was people in the upper tiers of frequent-flier programs, who again were deemed useful and trustworthy (anybody who clears security as often as the top-tier FFs do is either trustworthy or a complete systemic failure of security).

After running that for a while, they started up another avenue into Pre, called "Managed Inclusion". This was advertised as a test of real-time capabilities to assess who does and who doesn't need more rigorous screening, but from a cynical perspective was really just a way to expose casual travelers to the fact that Pre exists and give them a taste of it. Managed Inclusion is why you see random Joe and Jane Traveler told to go to the Pre lane; it's not a consistent status/membership like the other trusted-traveller programs, it's just a thing that does or doesn't happen sometimes when they check in and get a boarding pass.

As an aside: Managed Inclusion has significantly reduced the usefulness of Pre, because people who end up in it have been conditioned to do the typical process (remove stuff from bags, take off shoes/belts/etc.), and don't get the fact that, when their boarding pass has the Pre logo, they don't have to do that. Which eats up more time as they get lectured by a TSA person, repack their stuff, put their shoes back on, and so on.

And now you can just enroll directly in Pre by paying the application fee and getting background checked (though why anyone would, when NEXUS or GE are more useful and come with Pre as a side effect, I don't know). So the frequent-flier-status enrollment is being wound down, Managed Inclusion keeps going as a way to expose the general public to the idea, and that's where we are today.

[newman314]

Which leads to my statement of "pay-to-play" unlike zzalpha's claim above.

Managed Inclusion is akin to Movie Preview in hotels back in the day...

I stand by my statement that Pre should be the norm not the exception. Make Global Entry the premium tier, that's fine but Pre needs to be the new norm.

[zzalpha]

What part of "and getting background checked" did you not read? :)

I grant you, though, it sounds like Pre is far less rigorous of a check than NEXUS or Global Entry. But a check is still involved.

[ubernostrum]

I don't know what's involved in Pre.

But GE involves CBP going through employment/address history as well as every time your passport's been used and any issues you've ever had at a border (I know because I heard a guy at the next desk being grilled in his interview about a piece of fruit in his luggage when I was in my interview). And NEXUS involves having both the US and Canada run checks on you independently.

So in terms of rigor, NEXUS > Global Entry > Pre seems to be the way it goes.

[Bedon292]

The number of miles / times / airlines that have been flown has no relationship to the Pre Check. It is literally a background check, which your mother passed. Meaning she is lower risk than others who have not.

[msandford]

I get that it's a background check. That's very clear to me.

My mother didn't apply for it, nor did she pay for it. If it costs money to get, why would the airline give it to her? It's not because she's "high status" as she doesn't have an appreciable number of miles.

[dsl]

You are missing the point that her background is reevaluated for every single time she flies. Also, the Airline does not give it to her, the TSA does. It is used to filter extremely low risk individuals into the Pre system so they don't clog up the normal lines.

[msandford]

But it gets printed on the boarding pass right? So what's to stop a terrorist from forging the boarding pass with "pre-check" on it and going into the low-security line instead of the high security line?

[dsl]

Before entering the security line the bar code on your boarding pass is scanned, decoded, and checked against the traveler database. If any of the information does not match, you will be detained. The circles or lines that a TSA agent will draw on your boarding pass are part of a system to help the agent remember to check each piece of information, part of which is verifying it against the scanner.

The machine looks something like this http://ww3.hdnux.com/photos/01/64/47/477654/3/628x471.jpg

[gergles]

She only has it when she's flying on that airline, and as other commenters have mentioned, that program is being phased out, so she will soon need to subscribe to a TTP herself.

[mikeash]

Why would the number of miles flown have anything to do with it?

[msandford]

Why would the airline give her an $85 gift if she didn't have a lot of miles, and therefore a lot of "status" as the airlines call it? I see a lot of people in this thread suggesting that more miles equals more likelihood of the airline giving it to you.

[mikeash]

I have no idea, but the airline's process for deciding who they hand it to has nothing to do with the background check performed by the government.

[msandford]

The point is that if airlines (or the TSA) can afford to give it to people that don't spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, perhaps the $85 "background check" isn't terribly thorough and therefore more of a joke than real security.