gooselee

All of this. I signed up for CLEAR the day after they opened at ATL and it has been well worth my $79/year. Mrs. Lee also pays $99/year which is far more expensive per trip for her, but it's peace of mind and me not having to wait for her on the other side.

Though on Monday mornings at ATL, I've been in a line even in CLEAR before. However, I spent maybe a total of 5 mins in that line, vs. what looked like a 15-20 min line in Precheck. The biggest slowdown at ATL currently are those stupid new automated bin lines...

Yes, the difference is sometimes only 10-15 mins. But for early morning flights that's 10-15 more mins of sleep, combined with however many flights in a week/month/year...it starts to add up. In places like IAD it can cut a 20-30 min wait down to zero sometimes, and I've bypassed amusement park-level lines at MCO and LAS before.

Another related thread: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trus...-179-year.html

GRALISTAIR

Yep ^

safigan

One unique benefit: I once left my wallet in pants that I then packed into my luggage... and then checked my luggage! With Clear I was able to get through security without a picture ID. I couldn't buy so much as a water until I got home, but it was worth it!

dinanm3atl

Definitely off-peak or similar. I've seen the line at all kinds of times quite long and snaking all over the place in ATL.

And yes. I knew of CLEAR and wanted it but didn't do it until home airport have it. Now use it all the time and love it.


Those bins/automated system is just a steamy doodoo

Seabilly

I get it for free. Based on my home base and the places I normally fly, I would not pay for it. 

uppereastsider

I think it depends on where you fly from. I've got it because it's at LGA and it's been a life saver - I've had two incidents in the past 2 weeks where there were 50+ people on the precheck line at LGA and I was running late to my flight... was able to cut the line and get to the gate w/o any issue. Very worth it for me

If LGA didn't have clear, I'd struggle to find value, even at the PM discount rate.

SuperG1955

+100, especially at LGA

bj27

Don't you think that the value proposition of CLEAR goes down as more users get it, though?

That is what happened with TSA Precheck. Would it not be different this time around?

arkangel

Since none of my home airports offer it, I'm not sure I'll renew when my free year as a Diamond expires. And even though my alternate "home" airport, DFW, has it, their current location is not directly associated with the Pre Check line. So, it only puts you in front of the regular line where, of course, you have to do the "TSA mombo." Now, this might be a temporary placement due to the construction going on at Terminal E.

However, I have enjoyed using it recently at LGA, MIA, and DTW. Definitely an advantage at LGA!

jamesteroh

Thing is that Clear is at more airports now that Delta offered it for free and I bet they are getting a kickback from Delta. As soon as Delta started giving it as a diamond benefit locations appeared at all the Delta hubs, before that the only location that had it that I used was LAS.

I don't think Precheck would be bad at all if they limited it to those with a TTN. I've never seen a line at Clear, usually the people I see at DTW talking to the Clear rep are clueless flyers that received precheck for the first time thinking it's the pre line.

I'm sure if the clear lines start getting too congested they will make changes to the free clear like the skyclubs did when they were having trouble with overcrowding and stopped allowing Am Ex people to guest in others.

Robert Leach

I think $79 for it is very reasonable. Not having to fish out the license from the wallet appeals to me.

Quinlanty

I love it. Get it for free but turned my mom onto it. She paid. I fly out of SFO/BWI/JFK the most and all have it now. Cutting the line is great, but what really makes it worth it to me.... not having to take my ID out for TSA. That alone is worth whatever they charge!

rucksack

The new bin system is a little O/T, but since it was mentioned...

The new system certainly isn't as efficient as it could and should be (at least as compared to the similar systems used in European airports like AMS and LHR), but I don't think it's any worse than the traditional system.

The main problems I've noticed that should be remedied:

• The screeners stop the entire conveyor too frequently and for too long in order to carefully inspect the x-ray images, creating a bottleneck for bags entering the queue; the conveyor should run nearly continuously with any questionable bags being sent to secondary screening without hesitation.
• Too many bags are lazily sent through the x-ray again for re-screening, worsening a bottleneck for bags entering the x-ray machine; in the European systems I've seen, a dedicated secondary screener reviews the original x-ray on a separate monitor and then hand-inspects bags as necessary
• When a bottleneck for bags entering the x-ray machine occurs, passengers must wait to push their bins forward until the space in front of them clears. Passengers with multiple bins therefore often have their bins separated in the x-ray queue by many other bins, creating a backlog in the retrieval queue.
• Compounding the above retrieval issue, empty bins are not efficiently removed from the queue; sometimes the backlog can actually stop the conveyor since there is no space to advance bags. The retrieval space should be longer and/or should have a secondary track (like there is for loading bags) so that passengers can easily push forward bins to be recycled as they are emptied out of sequence.

</end operations rant>

gooselee

Shortly after posting this I was reading something else and realized that CLEAR has a family plan where you can add on family members for only $50/year.

Five minutes later I had completed online chat with CLEAR, Mrs. Lee had been tacked on to my plan, and they are processing a $49 refund to her credit card.

I will say that CLEAR's customer service on multiple occasions has been very, very good. They have competent people who actually seem empowered and interested in helping and retaining customers.

Yes, but for me, the value proposition is still there as of today.

Also, albeit slowly, CLEAR seems to actively attempt to expand to scale. I know the last growth was due to the DL partnership, but even in their roll out at ATL, they kept adding kiosks and staff as the numbers ramped up. Pre has grown a little bit, but not in the same way.

At least in perception, it feels like the CLEAR people are acknowledging and attempting to address growth in ways that TSA doesn't for the rapid expansion of Pre.

I agree with all of this. I'd add to your list the fact that when a bag is shunted to secondary, there is a SINGLE TSA officer doing the secondary screening and he/she only handles one bin at a time. Old line, I get flagged for secondary and someone takes my bag within a minute or so, we walk to an open table and do our thing. First time through the new line, we got flagged for secondary (still no idea why, we had packed the same stuff we always do), and proceeded to stand around for over 20 minutes until it was our turn to have our stuff inspected. Had we been cutting it close at all, we'd have missed our flight.

In principle/design, the new system should be as good or better than the old one. But TSA has flopped so hard in execution that in reality it operates substantially slower than the old system. Compound that with the facts that 1) it's not the norm, 2) it relies heavily on "correct" user behavior, and 3) dazed and confused travelers are being shunted to Pre, and you have a recipe for one giant hot mess.

exwannabe

As it is no more than a line jumping option. it fails completely as significantly more sign up.

Consider the limit case, everybody has Clear. Now you have paid for nothing.

Somewhere before that though the line jumping advantage starts to erode. If one clear line and 3 Pre lines, then once 1/4 have signed up it is near useless.

There are only so many they can get through the scanners per hour. Clear can not change that. It can only put you ahead of others in line.