Airports can be a nightmare, or they can be a breeze. It all comes down to knowing the right strategies. So today, with the help of my good friend Lee Rowan, we are going to make sure you know more than a dozen different tricks and hacks to skip security lines, breeze through immigration, and avoid all the big travel headaches.

We'll cover the basics like whether pre-check, global entry, or clear are worth it, but we're also going to go deep down the rabbit hole and share things that I didn't even know existed until I spent hours researching this episode. So assuming you don't love wasting your time in crowded lines, I think you will love this one.

I'm Chris Hutchins. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or leave a comment or review. And if you want to keep upgrading your life, money, and travel, click follow or subscribe. So I want to ask you one question first. Aside from today, how early do you get to the airport?

That's like saying which child is my favorite, right? There's always a different answer depending on the day and depending on the need. I think as a general rule of thumb, I'm a kind of person who doesn't want to be stressed at the airport. So I'm getting there early enough, but not too early.

I want to make sure I enjoy lounge. I want to make sure I get through security without any problems. If there's passport control or immigration or anything else, I want to make sure I have that taken care of. But generally, for a domestic flight, I'm an hour to an hour and 15 ahead of time, especially when I'm traveling with kids.

Maybe that's an hour and 30 because I know we're logging a lot of stuff. For international flight, it's not much more than that, honestly. Departing from the States, maybe an hour 45. You know, they always say get here two to three hours early. No, I don't really want to do that.

I don't want to be killing so much time that my kids are running around bored in the airport. So I don't know. I probably have a slightly different perspective because I don't have to add travel time, which I think adds the uncertainty because we live so close to the airport.

I domestic flight, no checked bags, leave the house an hour before, get to the airport 45 minutes before. And I always have extra time. Yeah. But that's for like the I'm going to L.A., I need to do a thing, not the I want to get to the airport early and have a meal.

Same with you with kids were there earlier, but if it's an international flight, maybe we're there earlier just because we want to eat before we get on the plane so that we can sleep on the plane, assuming we're flying in business with points. But I think there's one thing we can both agree on is that no matter how early or late you get to the airport, none of the time we want to spend at the airport, whether it's before takeoff or landing, is in a line at security, at immigration, at customs.

You might want to get here two hours early, three hours early. You might want to get here 45 minutes early. I think we can all agree that no matter what time we get here, we don't want to be waiting in line. Lines are the worst. I'm even like the anti pre-boarding line guy.

I'm not going to like get there with the gate lice and be in the cattle line to try to get on. I'm just going to take my time getting on because I don't want to wait at lines, period, full stop. So what we put together, I think, I would argue, based on my quick research on this episode, is the most comprehensive guide to how to skip all the lines at the airport.

100%. And so I think we're going to start as early as when you think about traveling all the way up until, you know, when you get there, when you land, immigration, everything. So first off, if you want to avoid the lines when you're planning your trip, based on today, by the way, we're recording this at the airport.

We had come here thinking, wouldn't it be fun if we tested some of these things? There was no testing possible. There are, surprisingly, Friday, pre-holiday Friday, even feels like, here in the Bay Area, there are literally zero lines. There was a one minute line at TSA PreCheck and two minutes for the general TSA, which is incredible.

Yeah. I was like, oh, let's look at the app, see if the apps that tell you how long the lines are accurate. Let's, you and I, each one go through clear, one not go through clear. What do we need to find out? Couldn't even do that. Yeah. So unfortunately we couldn't put those things to the test.

We came on a day where that wasn't an option. However, we're still going to talk about it. So I think when you're planning a trip, if you want to avoid the lines, there are times, sounds like Friday after President's Day weekend is a good time to come to the airport to avoid lines.

What do you think are not good times to come to the airport if you're planning a trip? Obviously, key peak travel periods are important to take a look at. But I would also say anytime you're hearing the TSA put an output into the press releases around, you know, get to airports early this weekend.

Like, listen, right? Thanksgiving, Christmas, et cetera, Easter spring break, whatever. But I would also just take a look at, there is a website that you can check. It's not always accurate, not always great for the TSA wait times at the airport. Just take a look at that and see what kind of the trends are looking like on the day of your travel and see if maybe you're going to get to the airport and be surprised by three hour lines somewhere.

No matter what you do, there are resources out there, whether it's Reddit, the traditional wait times or airport specific hacks on how to get through different security lines faster. That could work for you. That would help you game out how you're going to do it. But I would always, for each of the airlines that I fly, when it's a new experience, I always want to kind of understand what is my security expectation?

How long should I be planning on being at the airport ahead of time to make sure I can get through that line as fast as possible? I will say, yes, avoiding holidays and off-peak travel can increase your likelihood that you won't be stuck in line. But the reality is, by the time we're done with this, I don't think you should be waiting in any lines.

And that's not to say there's no lines. Like, I've waited in lines, you've waited in lines, even when we had all the line-skipping tools and tricks. But I have never waited in a line so long without knowing that I might. Right? If I'm changing planes in a foreign country, flying economy, and I have no status and no fast track, I plan that I'm going to wait in a line for a long time.

But when I'm planning, you know, there are ways to avoid probably 15 minutes would be the max. If you budget 15 minutes, you should be good. So, let's go through all the things that you should do to make sure you're through security as fast as possible. And the first is just to check in before you get to the airport.

One thousand percent. We always check in 24 hours or sometimes 30 hours, depending on the airline, in advance to make sure that we have boarding passes in hand. We understand if our known traveler numbers or our fast track security or our premier access or whatever is showing on the boarding pass.

And if it's not, that's the time to troubleshoot it as a day in advance. You definitely don't want to be at the airport with very little time to spend and you've got to wait into a line at the counter to talk to somebody to actually get a boarding pass.

You're not doing it right. So, check in 24 hours in advance, you know, for some airlines like Southwest, that's almost a requirement, right? If you don't check in and get a better boarding pass, you will be waiting in line in the back of the Bs or the Cs in a bad boarding position, which is never what you want.

At least for now, right? But we'll see what the end of the year brings for Southwest changing. So, you want to check in online. There are some cities. I pulled up a few. Hong Kong, for example, at Hong Kong Station, Kowloon Station, you can actually check in and go through security.

Is that right? No, you can check your bag, check your bag. Security. Okay. So, you can check in your bags and avoid that. Obviously, if you're checking bags at the airport, you can't avoid going to the counter. But you can check your bags at curb check. Yep. I believe Tampa Airport is the only airport that I found where there is a drive-through bag check at the rental car area.

I've never heard that until doing research for this episode. Dubai also allows you to do this, too, where you can basically send your bag ahead of time from your hotel directly to your Emirates flight, which is pretty cool. That doesn't, unfortunately, work when you're coming back to the States.

So, it works when you're going onwards to other destinations if you're flying Emirates. But there are, if you look into this and do a little bit of research on your airline, in particular, and the city you're flying from, there may be some opportunities, like you're saying, that would allow you to do a city check-in and alleviate lugging your bags to the airport.

Yep. And just waiting in line at check-in. There are some places where the check-in line is a pain. Now, you can, with some tickets or status on different airlines, go through the Premier line or the Elite line or the I-just-paid-$20 line. And so, when we were traveling at Paris Orly on Transavia, we paid the premium fee to be able to have the expedited line, which meant that we went into the short line, but we didn't have status.

And it wasn't... Yeah, I don't think there really is a status on Transavia or Ryanair or EasyJet. But yeah, those are great, great ways of, especially with families, saving time and getting ahead. Yeah. And so that was one. And then in Japan, you can use luggage forwarding services, which are really amazing and actually very fast and efficient.

The downside being, when you're using them, they, you know, it's not instant. So if you need your bag, the second you arrive somewhere, you can't do that. But you can send your luggage, you know, instead of having to lug it on the train, instead of having to lug it to the airport, I went online and I looked.

There's two companies I found, luggage forward and ship and play, where you can order your bags to be shipped ahead of time internationally. And the prices were not as high as I thought. And so I looked, San Francisco to Paris, 200 bucks for 25 pound bag, 400 bucks for a 50 pound bag, takes seven days.

Ship and play was 245 for 50 pounds. But if you have a clear membership, which we'll talk about in a little bit, 50% off two to four days. Yeah. So is $245 a good price? You probably are only going to pay 50 to $75 to check the bag at the airport.

So yes, it's more expensive, but it might be a lot less hassle. 100%. Here's where we use this, right? If you're going to be, let's say, going to Florence and spending a week there and then going up to the Dolomites and going skiing, you don't want to have all your ski gear with you in Florence while you're there.

So what we do is we use, whether it's ship sticks or luggage free, luggage forward, ship and play, any of these kinds of providers, we scope them out, see who's the cheapest, make sure that the hotel and the Dolomites will be able to receive all of the baggage, of course.

And then we ship those ahead of time before somebody leaves the States. So that way, their bag is in Europe by the time they get to Europe, they're in Florence having a great time, they can simply waltz into the Dolomites, their bags are already there. Highly recommend using this also to send stuff home from Europe or from Asia when you're on a long trip.

It saves you time and it does save you money in the end. Yeah. So if you can't pay for the premium line, status obviously helps. Almost every airline, except some of the budget ones have some form of status and some form of reciprocal status if you're flying on a partner airline.

I did an episode 182 all about all the shortcuts to elite status. We're not going to talk about how to get status, but I will say that being able to walk through the short line, Southwest saved us at least 30 minutes last week flying to Salt Lake City. And then plenty of times in United, we walked by the United line for the premier bag drop was much shorter than the other line.

Both were very short though. So today was, today was the day that none of this mattered, but there are a lot of days where I'm traveling where all of this matters. So that's what happens before you get to security. Once you're at security, let's talk about some options. There's a lot of ways of getting through security the best possible way without having to wait, but also by just being savvy and looking around and seeing what your surroundings look like.

So you talked about check the TSA website. There's two apps that I found. There's My Flight, M-I Flight and My TSA, M-Y TSA. Oh yeah. And those two apps share airport wait times. So that's one option. One that we thought we'd uncovered today, which actually I still think would be a good option on another day where there is a lot of traffic is not always going through the security line for the terminal you're flying out of.

Exactly right. There are some airports where this is a terrible idea because they're not connected. Right. And I've done plenty of searches that are like SFO T1 T2 air side connection, and you can find out whether they're connected or go to the airline website. But what we noticed today was that United at SFO has expanded into Terminal 2, but all the check-ins in Terminal 3.

So the only airlines that actually have check-in desks at Terminal 2 were Breeze and Air Canada, which have, I'm going to guess no more than five flights a day at max. And so going through terminals to security and then walking over to Terminal 1 or Terminal 3 would be incredibly fast if there was a long line there.

And I've multiple times at SFO, when I was flying out of Terminal 3 and it was a mess, walked over to International, gone through International and walked back. A hundred percent. And this also works, by the way, for lounges, right? If you're going to be going, like maybe we are, to a lounge at a different terminal, you can use the security apparatus in that terminal, go to the lounge, and then walk airside to your gates.

Or even leave. If you really wanted to, you could go to, you know, the International Terminal in some airport, go to the lounge if you get there, or have a super long layover, leave security, and go through another one. It's not, you are allowed to go through any airport security at any terminal at the airport, at least domestically, even if your flight is not there.

The kicker here is just do not do that when you're traveling internationally. You can't really leave once you've stamped your passport and you've exited the country. Yes. It kind of depends. Here in the States, you don't go through immigration when you leave, so you can go to the International Terminal.

But in a lot of countries, I would say, this is not advice I would take. But domestically, I very often, if I get to the airport too early, or have a really long layover, I'm going to go find the best lounge. And actually, this is a quick preview. I'm going to be recording an episode, not today, about all the different lounges, lounge access, everything.

So we're not going to cover that. Though, if we ever get a text back from the club at SFO, where we intended to record this episode, we're going to head over there and pause and resume this episode. But so alternate ports of entry. I remember when I went to school in Colorado, there was always this optimal thing where you can go through the main security, and then you can take the little people mover tram.

Or there was the ability to go through a little bridge that went over to Terminal A or Concourse A, and you could go through security there. And I don't know if this is still the case, but that line when I was in college was always so much shorter. And it turns out, as I did research, the bridge that you walk over is the only bridge maybe in the world at an airport where you can walk over moving planes that move under you.

Seattle also has one going to their customs. But yes, you're right. There's very few bridges like that, which is kind of fun. Yeah. The thing about these, how do you uncover this information, right? There's thousands of airports around the world, thousands of different ports of entry into those airports.

Reddit is a really great place to do this, where you can really, there are some Redditors who've done an excellent job laying out the best security access points at times of day, etc. So I'd highly recommend that. And note that things do change. Checkpoints here, even at SFO, one of the business airports in America, are only open for time periods depending on the flights that are happening.

So if you go to the International Terminal and expect that it's going to be fully staffed, it may not be. So be aware of that as well. Yeah. One thing that I'd never heard of until I started researching this -- and actually, I was researching Denver to see if that Terminal A concourse thing was there -- and I found this thing called Den Reserve.

And up to, I think, three days in advance, you can reserve a time to go through security. And it's totally free. And it's not affiliated with any program. Anyone can go to the Denver airport website, find Den Reserve, say, on Sunday morning at 9:00 AM, I want to go with three people through security.

And it's a fast track through security that doesn't require you to have TSA-pre, it doesn't require you to have Clear or anything else. But keep in mind, you're still going to have to, like, take out your laptop and you take your shoes off, all that stuff. It's not getting you through that part of security.

It's getting through the line waiting part a lot faster, which in an airport like Denver can be really important. Those lines, even with TSA-pre, can be 45 minutes an hour long sometimes, which is crazy. And if you book this and you don't want to use it, it was free, so it doesn't matter.

So if you're flying out of Denver, there's no reason not to check out Den Reserve three days before and book a spot. Seattle, Orlando, Schiphol out in Amsterdam, these all are offered as well by those airports. Airports are bringing this on or testing it, beta testing it, so check with your airport website to see if maybe there's something, a program like this that doesn't exist yet that will be by the time you listen to this.

But in those other airports too, right? So actually, where I found most of this information, so I found the Denver one, and then I was looking at some of the perks of Clear, and we'll talk about Clear in a minute. And it turns out Clear runs most of the reservation-based security line programs, except Denver.

So I went to Denver, didn't find the connection to Clear, went to Clear, and it was like, "Oh, there's some in Canada, there's one in London, Luton, there's one in Rome." And all of those ones, except Denver, are all run by Clear, but they don't require a Clear membership.

And so you can just go to the Clear website and use these. And in some of them, they're free, and in some of them, they're paid. And if you do have a Clear membership and they are paid, then they are free. And so Clear is a good resource for finding these, ability to reserve a spot.

But you can also go to the airport website. And I think many of them are free, so I would say it's kind of an insurance policy. You show up like we did today, and there's zero people, don't even worry about looking for the pre-reserved line. But show up at Rome and use what's called QPass, which I've never even heard of until I researched.

Maybe that would be a really great scenario, especially in a foreign country, where you probably don't have their equivalent of Fast Track, Premier lines, and all that kind of stuff. So now let's talk about the big one that I think everyone traveling in the United States has heard of, or hopefully has, which is TSA Pre and Global Entry, which are technically different.

And I know you and I probably have our TSA Pre membership by having Global Entry, but they are different. So Global Entry is both an international program. I actually think you don't have to do the interview at the airport for Pre, but you do have to do it for Global Entry.

Is that right? It depends on your status with the government. Like when they run your information, they may require you to do it, they may not. But with Global Entry, I think you always have to. You do. Even for children. Even for children, which is amazing. Yes. I brought a six-month-old to the airport and I was like, obviously she's not going to participate in this interview, but she's here and you can see a picture of her.

And by the way, actually, I think she was 12 months and the photo we used was six months. So she didn't even look like the photo, but it was a requirement. So Global Entry is 120 bucks. There are 40 different credit cards and then a bunch of Amex cards that are not part of that 40, because for some reason, the Global Entry website lists every card and then says American Express cards.

So there are plenty of cards that offer this as a reimbursement. So many that Amy and I summed it up and I think we have 10 Global Entry reimbursements. So you usually get them every four or five years. Almost everyone in our family that doesn't already have free Global Entry, we have just paid for their Global Entry because it's free.

So if you don't have access to this and you have a friend that likes to play the credit card game, you might have extra Global Entry memberships available to you. Pre is a little cheaper. I don't know why, but it's $78 to $85. There are two ways to buy it.

I don't know why. You can also go to your local Staples and Office Depot and get TSA Pre through some of these offline channels as well. But check TSA.gov and they'll have information on how to sign up for both. The Global Entry process is a little laborious, but it's so worth it when you can get through not only security on the inbound side coming into an airport, but also when you come into a new country or come back to the States and you can use Global Entry.

Those lines are a breeze. Maybe wait a minute for a machine. Yeah. So for Global Entry, the benefit, why you pay the extra $40, but hopefully you don't pay the extra $40 because you have a credit card that covers it is you also get fast track immigration when you're coming back.

And it's amazing. The lines at immigration can sometimes be very long. Maybe we'll talk about immigration and skipping those lines. Love that. Global Entry, the biggest pain is that you have to go to this appointment. Correct. And you can do an appointment on arrival. So if you're flying back into a bunch of airports in the US, you can do your appointment then without needing an appointment.

I will say that on arrival is only open certain hours. Right. So my father-in-law was trying to figure this out and his flight landed past that time. So we needed to find an appointment. Yeah. If you need to find an appointment, you can just go to the website and look for them.

And then there's an app. It's not even an app. It's a website called Appointment Scanner. And I have been very successful using Appointment Scanner for securing TSA Global Entry appointments within one to two days. And the only catch I'll say is when they send you that text or that email, you need to be ready to get on it.

So I'm like, I'm logged into the Global Entry site on my computer. And then the second I get the text, I go, look. Appointment's there. Snap it up. Great service. I think we might have a deal on the deals page for Appointment Scanner, but I can't remember. So I've had a lot of success there.

But the reason to have TSA Pre and Global Entry for security purposes is at almost every airport, you have one of two options. Major airports, you have a TSA Pre line. And when you're flying TSA Pre, most people know this, but you don't take your shoes off. You don't have to take your liquids out.

Everything's a lot smoother. And because everyone in that line is someone who's applied for TSA Pre, you not only have these better rules, but you just have more people who know the rules. Who are set. I rarely see someone in TSA Pre that's bringing huge liquids and stuff they can't have.

So that is a huge advantage. There are a few small airports where the TSA Pre is, we give you a card. And the card just means that you can leave your shoes on, but you can't really do the full experience. But it's still better than not having that. Yeah.

Usually it takes you going through that weird scanning machine. You can just go through the regular magnometer and you're fine. Yeah. So big fan of TSA Pre. Lines are often shorter and more efficient as well. So I think if you travel almost at all, if you listen to the show, you probably have a credit card that pays for it.

So why not? Last thing I'll say about global entry is that there are some reciprocal agreements with other countries, which is great. Like you can get a Century card, which helps you get into US, Mexico, and Canada, alongside getting a global entry. So you could actually expedite security or border crossings at other places as well.

I think Korea is one of them too. So there's a couple of things. So there's Century and Nexus, which are separate programs. Nexus is Canada, Century is Mexico. You can do that. So if you only travel internationally to Canada, that's fine. If not, go for global entry. What I found crazy was I was skimming on the global entry website and there are these international arrangements that were not entirely clear.

And some of them would click on the country. And then this is Korea as an example. You click on Korea and it only actually shows you information about Koreans wanting to use global entry. Correct. And then in the navigation at the top, you click back one level. Then it says, are you a US citizen?

Then you click yes. And then you find out that there's this program in Korea called the Automated Immigration Clearance Services, SES, which as a global entry member, you are eligible to join, which fast tracks you through Korean security or immigration. Now, how often are you going to Korea? Are you going one time?

Is it even worth your time? To go through the process of filing this? Maybe not. But I did find that in Mexico, Germany, and New Zealand, there are different various ways that you can speed through security as a global entry member. In New Zealand, according to this, I haven't been to New Zealand, it says there is a dedicated lane on arrival for US global entry members.

Correct. And the reason all these exist is because the US has entered into some arrangements. So people from other countries are eligible for global entry. And some of them reciprocate. I was surprised that of the 20 or so countries, only three or four of them reciprocate. Okay. So on the topic of security, there's one more thing which we haven't talked about, which was clear.

Both used clear today. Probably didn't actually save us any time. Didn't need to, but it was kind of nice to have. Yeah. And there are times when it does save a lot of time. And what clear does in almost every airport I've used it, is it basically skips you to the front of the line, whether you are pre-check or not.

There's most airports, there's a clear plus pre, clear, not pre, some there's one clear line. And then after you go through, they split you out, but it lets you skip the line, but it doesn't change what happens at security other than you usually don't need to bring your ID out.

Now I say usually because today I did need to bring my ID out. We did just get a message though, that we can go to the lounge and finish this. So let's relocate. This episode is brought to you by Trust and Will. It is so easy to overcomplicate simple tasks.

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We decided to explore a lounge free with Priority Pass. Pretty nice. Good vibes. There's a secret room to the right at the top of the stairs we didn't know about. So that's great. And we were in the middle of talking about Clear and how you can skip the line but not change anything about security.

Talk about pricing. Clear is $199 a year. It's $119 per family member if you want to add them or $119 per year if you're a government employee. But there are a lot of ways to get Clear for free or cheap. If you have an Amex Green, Platinum, Business Platinum, Hilton Aspire, you get free, Clear, or at least you get it reimbursed on your card.

If you have Delta Diamond, United 1K, or Global Services, you get Clear free. And then if you have any Delta card, any United card, or any Delta or United status, you get $40 off. And just being a member of Delta or United, which is free, you get $10 off.

So no one should be paying full price. Exactly. Because everyone gets $10 off. If you don't already have TSA Pre, and for whatever reason you don't want Global Entry, you can buy Pre and Clear together for $199. So Clear is at 59 airports. I don't know what your experience is.

Almost every airport I go to, Clear. Yeah, most major North American airports, US airports. Also, a number of other locations that are non-airport as well. Yes. There are 17 event centers. Like, you go to Chase Center, Yankee Stadium, you can use Clear. I've never actually used Clear at an event center.

I don't know if you have. It's a little bit faster, not a ton. Again, it depends on when you arrive and what the line situation looks like. But it's nice to have that dedicated line if there is that wait. And then there's one random thing. And I'm going to retrace my steps and correct what I said.

When I talked about those reservation systems that Clear had, I actually think they're all free. But there is something called Clear Mobile, which is $10, or I guess $9 to $19 is what I found at five airports. So probably something we're not going to be using that often. Especially given the locations.

Savannah, Georgia, Louisville, Kentucky, Grand Rapids, and Sarasota, Florida are the four domestic places you can use Clear Mobile. I'm going to guess you've never used Clear Mobile. Never have. I maybe never even knew about it. I never knew about it until I did this research. The only place that it was interesting was San Jose, Costa Rica.

Yeah. So you can use Clear Mobile. You can get through security faster. I don't know exactly how it works, so I'll let you look it up. But if you already have Clear, it's free. If you don't, it's $9 to $19 per person. A couple extra perks about Clear that I didn't know about.

So one is they have a bunch of discounts with a bunch of different programs. They're not too dissimilar from the discounts you get other ways. So I don't know how big of a deal those discounts will be to you or anyone else. But they do have this thing called the Ambassador Assist, which in Denver, Dulles in DC, Orlando, and Minneapolis, they will help someone with their luggage, security, or anything.

It's kind of like a greeting service. Mini-greeter, yeah. Mini-greeter, but it's free. So if one of your family members needs this, or I guess they say they'll help with bags. If you're flying solo parent two kids to a ski destination, you need help with your bags. Last week, we went to Park City.

Amy had pulled her back, and so she could not carry any bags. If I weren't there, well, we couldn't have used it because they don't have it in Salt Lake City, but it was Denver. It could have been helpful. It's very helpful to an airport like that in particular.

I don't know if you've ever heard anyone that tried this, but there's this program called Clear Scout. Yep. I think it's mostly for finding things that are lost at security. Once it's in the general airport lost and found, Clear Scout can help you. If you leave something at a TSA checkpoint, they're very good at getting it back.

It implied that it would also work if I left something at the gate, and they could go find it, but I've never used it. Sounds like you've used it? We've used it for clients before, and I'll say that once you get to the general airport lost and found, God be with you.

It's impossible getting things back. Even things you might leave on an airplane that then get turned into the general airport lost and found. I mean, it happens. We've gotten jackets and iPads and laptops, but for some reason, it's like they kind of disappear once they hit airport lost and found.

Yeah. I will say one fun fact. As of yesterday, I think it was American joined Delta and United to all three allow when you lose a bag to share your AirTag. Yeah. So I've always carried AirTags in our checked bags just so we know where they are. But now you can actually share that with the three major US airlines to help them find your bag faster.

Super helpful. That's cool. None of that helps you skip the line, but these are some of the perks of Clear, which I think I have found are worth it, but I have a credit card that pays for it. So debatable on how you calculate worth it. One of the challenges is if you have multiple credit cards and multiple people trying to make the system work, so you're not paying anything.

So if you had three cards that covered your Clear membership, but you have them all on one account, are you going to be able to bill partially everyone? I believe the workaround that I tried was Amy's on one account, I'm on the other. And we tried adding one of her family members to see if it would work and then set a reminder the day before renewal, remove the family member, let your account renew at full price, change your billing information, then re-add them.

Yep. But the easier thing would be for them to just get their own membership and use that own card. Clear is free for your children. I can't remember at what age, if it's 18 or 13, probably 18. I should have looked that up, but so you don't need to do that.

Whereas Global Entry is also free, but you do need to sign them up. TSA Pre and Clear are free for your kids. You don't need to sign them up. Correct. You can bring them through. Yes, but you will at the airport if you have not enrolled your children in Global Entry, and you try to use it with your children.

It will not work. It will not work. It will not be true, yeah. Other things for security, the premium line. There are a lot of airports where if you have status with an airline, or if you paid for premium security, you can go through a shorter line. Overseas, this seems to be so valuable.

It's the jam. And I would say, especially when you're in Europe and in Asia, if you're flying a new carrier to you, see if they offer a premium security line. It's worth it. It's sometimes between $5 and $50 per traveler, per trip. If you don't have status. If you don't have status, exactly.

Or if you're not flying business class. Correct. A lot of times, business class status include this. Yep. Didn't you tell me there's some hotels that include it? Some hotels do it, actually, as well. And they'll do it either on the arrival or departure or both, depending on what your sort of status with the hotel is or what the booking is.

But a great example of this is the Royal Monster in Marrakesh, right? They will provide a greeter to actually meet you plain side, which we'll talk about in a minute. Bring you through all the immigration and formalities when you're getting into the country. But then on the reverse, on the going out.

So it's great because you can save so much time and hassle. And again, ask your hotel if you've already made a reservation at a hotel. Ask them if they either have this service available to them. Sometimes it is an additional fee or sometimes it's included in suite bookings or whatever.

Or if they know where you can get that for security in and out of the country. I've never seen this in the US. You've probably experienced it more. There are a lot of countries where whether it's immigration or security, if you're with a family, they treat you much better.

Yes, unfortunately, they definitely don't do that in the US because they don't want to. Everyone here is equal. But yeah, in other countries, I've seen it where there's actually separate immigration lines. Now, this can play to your disadvantage sometimes too. When you check into, when you fly into the Rome airport, right?

If you're a US citizen with a US passport that has one of those little chips in it, you can go through basically a biometric entry gate and get into the country faster. But if you're with children 18 and younger, you can't. So families are actually penalized in that case when you're arriving in Italy.

But yes. In Mexico, we've often been pulled out of the line and said, "Hey, you have kids. Don't wait in this line. Come right through." Yes. Excellent. And it helps to sort of get the eye of somebody who's minding the security line or the immigration line and make sure that they're aware that you have children with you and they're crying maybe or, you know, you nudge them a little bit.

But there is no formal, like, "You can request this ahead of time." Or you kind of have to get lucky, right? Yes. Now, there are family lanes that offer security and sometimes immigration as well. In certain countries, again, I would be on the lookout for them the moment you get to the airport.

They're not always well signposted, but they'll usually have a little family icon with a stroller and a couple parents and children in tow. Yeah. So that's an option. If you really want to go all out, there are a few airports where you can circumvent all of this stuff. And so I've actually never experienced the first one other than at SFO, but I'm sure it exists.

At SFO, if you have global services status with United, which I've never had but my father has, the check-in counter has its own backdoor entrance to the front of the TSA pre-line, which doesn't require clear at all. I'm sure that exists with Delta 360, Concierge Key, Global Services at other airports.

So that one is one where, you know, we could talk about statuses, but we've done that. So go back to 182, but that's a pretty hard one to do, even with money, right? To buy global services. You could spend a lot on flights, but it's not easy. It's possible, but it's not really the way you want to do it.

Especially for just saving time at the airport. I would say the best way of doing it is to check, A, does your airport have a special terminal? An actual special place that you can pay for access to go to where you're not with the general population, right? So at LAX, that's the private suite, you know, and in Frankfurt, that's the first class terminal.

That's the Windsor. Yeah. And Heathrow, which we use a lot. It's there's a number of them actually all throughout. And they're just to be clear, they're not cheap. They're not cheap. We're talking four or five thousand dollars per flight. Per use. Yes. Correct. Now that's for multiple people. It can be.

Yeah. But that is not cheap. It's not cheap. Great. I've never done it. Yeah. Have you done it? It's the best experience. So in LAX, the private suite for instance, and now there's more private suites coming up. There's one in Atlanta and one coming soon at JFK internationally as well.

But you get basically, you arrive at what is in essence an FBO. It's on the other side of the airport. It's where the private flights basically leave and depart from. And so you would pull up there. You would actually clear security there. You're waiting in an airport lounge like experience.

It can either be public or private or semi-public or private. And then you get driven in a car on the tarmac around the runway to the foot of your gate, which is incredible. Can you walk up those stairs on an elevator bridge? Yeah. Yeah. And so you can either be first or last aboard, which is really nice.

Some people want to be first. Some people want to be the very last on board. So a lot of our celebrities do this because obviously it's great to not be seen in the general public. It's a great private experience. If you have the money, wonderful. If you don't, there are some credit cards, Centurion in particular, that have a Centurion suite experience in some of these suites.

They've sort of watered down the privacy element. So they've upped the level of what a lounge access could be like. Maybe it's not worth it until you really go to the full-blown private suite experience. And I would say, as someone who doesn't care about being seen at the airport, I couldn't come up with a circumstance where I would recommend anyone spend this $5,000 unless money is not an object.

But for the sake of comprehensive coverage of different ways to skip the line, Exactly. This is absolutely the best. And I do know that if you are flying Lufthansa first class, which you can do with points, you can use the first class terminal if you are flying from the airport.

I don't think you can use it when you're connecting. You can use it when you're connecting as long as the labor is long enough. Yeah, that's correct. But if you are in Frankfurt and you're flying out of Frankfurt on Lufthansa first class, Yes. Which usually with points has to be booked within like three to four days.

Yeah. Yeah. So that is a chance to have this experience without paying $5,000. Exactly. Um, for the private suites at LAX, Windsor, I haven't heard of a trick to get it for free. There's no hack unless you either know someone or you pay five grand. Yeah. Um, and there are other airports with first class terminals.

Uh, I believe there's one in Zurich, but I can't remember. There is. There's one in Munich as well. The first class terminal experience and the private lounge experience are similar, but they're also separate, right? Some of them come with tickets. So when you book, for instance, an Emirates first ticket, you get to go to the first class lounge that sits atop of the Emirates terminals, which are incredible lounge experiences.

That's different, of course, from, um, let's say flying Emirates first out of Heathrow, when you can actually use the Windsor suite or the Emirates lounge, right? So there's two separate experiences there. So if I booked miles on Emirates first, would I be able to use the Windsor suite? No, you have to pay for it.

Okay. But if I paid for Emirates first, I would be able to use it for free? No, you still have to pay for it. When you look at the private terminals that are offered, that are adjacent to airports, they're really airline agnostic. So if you're talking about the Windsor suite or at LAX, the private suite, you can be flying pretty much any airline.

There are a couple of exceptions, but you're paying for access to that terminal. You're not actually getting access included with any of your airline tickets. So it's two separate transactions. Whereas with the first class terminal, for instance, in Frankfurt, Munich, if you're flying Lufthansa, you actually get access to that through your ticket.

So there are two very different experiences, but worthwhile calling out that when you're at LAX or when you're at Heathrow, you can actually buy access to one of these incredible terminal experiences. Yeah. But if you use points to fly on certain airlines and certain airports in first class, you can get a similar experience without spending thousands of dollars.

That's exactly right. And then there are some lounges at airports that might have their own entrance. Yeah. There's actually a number of them. In fact, in Dubai, the Emirates first class experience whisks you or Singapore with Singapore suites and Singapore first, they whisk you to a separate entrance to the actual airport itself.

And you have a completely customized first class experience, which you don't really have to see the rest of the world. Now, obviously at the US level, that's a little different. If you're flying flagship first on American or if you're flying Delta One, they do the best version of that they possibly can.

But you still end up... You're still going through the regular security. Exactly. Yeah. So to quick recap, to get through security faster, you can check the lines online, check the wait times. I think overlooked is finding other entry points. 100%. Great hack. I think TSA Pre and Clear are great, but I have had lines that are really long for those.

And then I've walked three minutes and cut that in half. Or more more. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously, check out reserving spots at airlines. It's kind of like a free way to get some insurance policy. TSA Pre, Global Entry, I don't see how you could fly more than once a year and not find good value.

Correct. I think I mentioned 120 bucks, 80 bucks. This is for five years. Correct. So amortizing it over the cost of a year, it's a no-brainer. Yeah. Clear, more expensive, reimbursed with a lot of credit cards, lets you skip the line. I still think it's worth it, but obviously we're not paying for it, so of course.

And then having status. Whisk you through the airlines fast. Paid fast tracks at a lot of places. You know, you can pay for them just as part of your ticket or through the airport. And then some of these private terminals, family lanes, that's kind of the recap. This episode is brought to you by Stable, which is a company that has really made my life better this year.

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The guide is free. You can go to chrishutchins.com/netsuite or click the link in the description. One thing we didn't talk about is greeters. Okay. And there is a hack. Again, there's a cost to it. But in most airports, there's the accessibility of getting around some lines by using a paid airport employee, a greeter, to get you through security, sometimes immigration, much faster.

These folks cost between 150 and $500 per use. And it does scale up based on how many people are using it at the same time. So if you're a family of five, it might be 150 for the first passenger and then 50 for each passenger thereafter. So it's not cheap.

But in some places where it's confusing to get to the airport, or you've got a tight connection, if you're coming inbound from one airline and going out on another, or if you're in a foreign country and you don't speak the language, getting a greeter might be a really valuable experience.

We've used greeters at five-year-owned airports across the world, right? And I'd say that for the most part, the investment of money is worth the time savings that you get with it. I would say that for people who are not interested in using a wheelchair, right? And because maybe they're less mobile, but they don't want to be in a wheelchair, getting a greeter in a porter is a great way of getting through domestic airports.

Internationally, especially, cutting lines, getting through security faster, getting through immigration faster, getting into a different lounge you might not have access to with your ticket, a great leveling up by using a greeter. Now, I'm someone who always likes to get the things for free. Greeters are often not free.

But there is one circumstance where I realized actually it might feel free. And that is, there have been times where I was looking at flights, almost always international flights with connections from a like international terminal to a, you know, within EU flight. And for whatever reason, especially at Charles de Gaulle in Paris, the process of going through immigration and then walking to this other terminal and then going through the line can sometimes take like a very long amount of time.

I've had hour long experiences doing that. And so sometimes you look and say, okay, I need, I can't book the 90 minute layover. I have to book the two and a half hour layover. Right. And if that two and a half hour layover is an extra $500 for your family, then you could book the one and a half hour layover and get a greeter for less than $500 and actually feel like you're saving money.

A hundred percent. And I'll even add to that and say that there are some airports, Charles de Gaulle is one of them, Frankfurt is another, where they actually have a minimum connection time allowed that you're, you're almost guaranteed to miss, right? So the airline is setting you up to fail.

When you work with a greeter, they often will get you through that immigration line faster, get you through security again faster. But also if God forbid you do miss your connection, they're there to help advocate on your behalf, working behind the scenes at the airline, that transfer desk to get you a better, you know, recovery flight.

And speaking the language that's more local to whatever country you're in. Totally. Totally. So yeah, so that makes a lot of sense. And sometimes that's the case because our au pair recently came from Spain and the au pair agency was looking to book, you know, the most affordable flight.

And for whatever reason, every single flight had a like 61-minute connection, like whatever the absolute minimum was at an airport in Europe where I was like 60 minutes is just not enough. And 60 minutes in the U.S. is definitely not enough because she's going to have to go through immigration and get her bag, recheck it.

And fortunately, we were able to find another flight. But I imagine the reason they were proposing these was that these were the most affordable. Of course. And so it would cost more to have a longer connection. And in that case, I could see a greeter making sense. Not necessarily for her, but it kind of really highlighted that sometimes the cheapest flights have the shortest connections.

Exactly. Okay. So before we get to immigration, because there's a lot of interesting stuff there, I want to talk about boarding just because it's another place that you stand in line at the airport. Yep. And there, unfortunately, aren't a lot of hacks with boarding. The biggest one is if you have status, you can usually skip the line or be in group one or two or whatever.

On some airlines, somehow I have status and I'm still the third or fourth group because it's not enough. Sure. You know, a lot of places, if you're active duty military, you can skip the line. Yeah, which is great. But I would say I'm not opposed to anyone joining the military, but I'm not sure I would join the military to skip the line at the airport.

But the only other things I know of, sometimes you can pay for early boarding, even if you don't have status. Southwest, if you just check in right away or pay for early bird check-in, you can get an earlier boarding number. Yeah. If you're in family boarding, a lot of airlines allow you to board early as a family.

At SFO, you can board from the lounge. The lounge. I've done it in Dubai on Emirates. Business or first, and I've done it from SFO. I don't know of any other airlines that board from the lounge. There's a handful of other airports I want to say in Asia that have lounge access directly onto the plane.

I think there's a cafe one, and I could be wrong on this, but there's a couple that have that. But it is a pretty unique experience. And obviously, the reason why it's hard is you have to have the plane connected to the lounge. Right. So, it works really well with Emirates in SFO because they only have one flight.

And they have one gate. One gate, and they just position the lounge next to that gate. So, that's a great experience to skip the line. Otherwise, I would say one great way to avoid the hassle of all of the boarding problems is, if you travel so lightly that you don't need overhead space, then you just board less.

Yeah. Now, don't miss your flight, right? There are cut-up times where they're going to close the door 10, 15, 30, 45 minutes sometimes before departure time. So, make sure you're there. Don't get to get too close. That's why services like a greeter or even the private suite are so great, because they're actually checking in with the gate to make sure, hey, this departure, are we A, going out on time, and B, are they going to close the gate at X time, making sure you're there right before that.

And this is a random question that's come up a few times that I'll just share the answer to, which is, if your flight is delayed, can it leave early? And the answer is yes. Oh, yeah, for sure. So, I would say the most important time to be cautious, if gates close 15 minutes before departure, it varies by airline, but if we're going to say 15, and your flight is scheduled to leave at 1, be at the gate before 12:45.

No matter what. And we've all been at a gate, or at least I'm sure you and I have, where we were there later, but the plane was there, and they just wouldn't let you in. Yeah. So, that's happened. Yeah. But if your flight's supposed to leave at 1, and it's delayed till 2, I would not show up at the gate at 1:45 because sometimes those get pulled in, sometimes they don't update the app, sometimes they don't make an announcement, and I would not want to be in a situation where the flight got pulled up and I missed it because I just didn't know.

Yeah. You're too busy hanging out in a lounge. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. This is a nice experience. It's a lovely place. Okay. So, that's boarding. Let's talk about immigration, because obviously, the big hack coming back to the U.S. is having global entry. If you don't have global entry, you're not eligible for global entry, there is a mobile passport control app, which is so clutch, and I just can't highly enough recommend it.

Number one, it's free. Number two, while you're waiting in line, if you don't have global entry, for customs and immigration clearance, you can literally download the app, fill it in, get out of that line, and go into the mobile passport control line. Or when you land at the airport, you can fill it out.

Yeah. There's no reason not to do it. Yes. And I believe you can use it as a non-American. Is that correct? There are a number of passports. I want to say it's like 20 or 30 that are allowed through that app as well. Yes. And so, for people who aren't eligible for global entry, great option.

We talked about Nexus and Century for Canada and Mexico. One fun one that a friend of mine who lives in San Diego has used. Have you done this yet? I have not done it. Oh, I loved it. CVX. It's the crossing between Tijuana and San Diego. And so, San Diego, you park in like these giant parking lots in Nota Mesa.

You walk across the border into Mexico. A bridge over the highway, right? It's bridge over the fence, basically. Yeah, it's kind of. But you arrive at the actual terminal in the airport in Tijuana. You have to step foot outside. It's really cool. Go to Google Maps and look at the Tijuana airport.

And you'll see that there's a parking lot in one country and an airport in another. Yeah. We did this recently flying back from Cabo and to and from actually. And our kids were just like jumping over the border like it was a fun little game, right? But it's great.

It's a couple hundred bucks to do it as a family, which offsets your costs considerably when you think about what the actual costs of US flights are over peak periods like holidays to and from Mexico. Now you're saying there's a couple hundred bucks. Why is there a couple hundred bucks cost?

Because there's actually it's a private company that operates the CBX experience. And so you've got to pay them number one. And number two, you know, your customs and immigration clearance fees, your Mexican FMI, like your permit fee to get into Mexico. So there's a cost to it as well as parking.

My understanding, though, if you live in San Diego. Yeah. The cost to park at the San Diego airport is insane. Like the total cost, if you're flying to Cabo and you live in San Diego, you can fly from San Diego to Cabo or you can park and fly from Tijuana to Cabo.

Yep. The flight cost from Tijuana to Cabo is wildly cheaper. So much cheaper. Than the San Diego flight cost. Yeah. And the parking is cheaper that people I've known that talked about this. I don't even know if they realized there were fees because when they looked at it all together, it was still so cheap.

I didn't even notice it. And it's also can be bundled in with your tickets on Volaris or on your aerobus. So if you're okay flying the sort of Southwest Mexico, right, you can absolutely save a bunch of money and it's it's comfortable and easy. Airport's great. One knock I'll have on the Tijuana airport is that the food options are not as delicious as you wish they would be, but that's okay.

But it's a great, great experience and I would highly recommend it. Now you mentioned earlier that in some countries you can use a biometric passport and you can go through faster security. I would say if you don't have a biometric passport or for whatever reason, your biometric passport doesn't work, which happened to me, it just stopped working.

That's something that I would upgrade. Like if your passport isn't a biometric passport, I'm guessing at this point, All the new ones. All the new ones. So most people listening will have one. But if you don't have that biometric logo on your passport, it's worth upgrading because in the UK, you can use the ePassport gates.

Yep. In Australia, you can use the smart gate. Let's talk about those two countries actually and a couple more. You know, when you go into the UK now as a US citizen and as a citizen of other countries too, you need to get the electronic travel authorization. So that's going to be tied to your passport.

And that's going to ensure that you can get into the country. Number one, we can board the flight. You can get into the country and you can get in quickly and easily. The Australia ETA is the same thing as well. New Zealand also has one. But now Europe, at some point later on in 2025, is going to also be instituting a similar thing called ETIIS.

Same idea where you'll have to be registering your passport ahead of time, paying a small fee. And theoretically, that should allow you to then use some of those eGates at other airports like Frankfurt, Rome, et cetera, a little more expediently. Most of us have walked through an international airport and it's like, EU citizens and everybody else.

Yeah. Does that mean that they're going to be like, EU citizens and people who filled out this thing online and everybody else? Supposedly, but it's actually going to be a requirement for people going into the UK, and going into Europe later on this year. So there will be no everybody else because everyone will have to do it.

Correct. But I think the thinking is that if you have a biometric passport from certain countries, in addition to that ETIIS, you can get through some immigration channels faster. Which I think in our prep for this, maybe we'll get to it, but I think I forgot to include, there are countries where you need travel authorization and visas.

Yes. And if you want to avoid lines, don't show up to those countries without a visa. Don't even try to board your flight at the home country before getting those. So again, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Europe, and of course, any other country where you need an actual visa, make sure your documents are in order before you leave home.

Because once you get to the airport and you try to check in, oh, you're going to be running into trouble if the ticket isn't cleared with the visa authorization. And I would say most of the US airlines I've flown on are really good. Yes. In that they're not going to let you board the flight to the country unless you have the travel document.

That doesn't mean that they're going to make it easy for you, right? If you show up at, you know, the airport at SFO, and you're boarding a flight to Vietnam, and you don't have a visa for Vietnam, and I believe Vietnam still requires a visa, not on arrival. Yeah, it's an e-visa that you can get online, but you'll get the actual printed visa when you get there.

But yeah, the thing that you should really remember is that the airlines are technically responsible. The one that carries you into that country, they're technically responsible for making sure you have the right documentation. But things fall through the cracks, right? There's little things that get slipped up. So we use a website called Sherpa.

And that website will tell you based on the passport holder you are, the routing you're taking, what visas you might need or what immunizations you might need or otherwise. Now, something to keep in mind, if you're flying San Francisco, Dubai on an Emirates award ticket, and you're flying onwards on a different ticket, Dubai to India, and you don't have an Indian e-visa yet, right?

When you checked in an SFO, they might not be putting two and two together that you're flying onwards to India. And so they might let you get to Dubai and now all of a sudden you get to Dubai and you're stuck, right? It's a great city to be stuck in, but you still, you want to make sure your documents are in order for all of your journey, no matter where you're going.

And what typically happens, this is a little bit of a side, but if I show up at the airport and I have a flight to Australia and I haven't done this process and I'm going to miss my flight because I do it, are they pretty good at booking me on the next flight and not making me pay for it?

It depends. Depends on the airline, depends on how you book the ticket, right? If you booked one way to Australia through Expedia, because it was cheapest for that one way, and you get to the airport and you don't have any visa and it's going to take three business days to get one and you apply online and you really hope it's going to come through and it doesn't come through before you board, you're SOL, right?

It really depends on the airline. How full the flights are, of course. The whole thing, right? Go to Sherpa. Go to Sherpa. Check it out and make sure you know what documents are required. What immunizations? I know some people might not know this, but there are countries where you need certain immunizations to get there.

Correct. Maybe I'm wrong, but are airlines checking for your yellow fever vaccine? If you're coming from or going to one of those countries that requires it, yes, they are. And again, that would be something you'd have to have in person on you. But the bottom line for all of this is that it's all avoidable if you're doing your homework, checking in advance, right?

And not waiting to the very last minute at the airport when you might be in a rush. Yeah. Okay. Another one, which is probably obvious to lots of people, but sitting up front can help. It does help. You get off the plane first. I think one thing that can really slow you down is go to the bathroom before you land.

I was just going to say, it was probably an overshare, but I'm like, always like really bummed when my family's like, I got to pee. The moment we got off the plane, I'm like, no, we are running. We are sprinting through this airport. Once we get in line, then you can go pee.

I'll wait in line and save the spot. But no, get in that line as fast as you can. And I often think that I've just been sitting on a flight for 13 hours and I'm tired. The last thing I want to do is actually like move my body fast.

But it actually feels really reinvigorating to like do that. So go to the bathroom before you land, sit as far from the plane and get straight to immigration. And sometimes you get to immigration, the line's not that long. And then sometimes you get there and you're in line, you're still waiting.

And then you see someone that was like slow and stopped to go to the bathroom is like 50 people behind you. And that can be minutes or hours of time to wait, right? Yeah. So one last one, which I have tried to get and been unsuccessful is the APEC business travel card.

Yes. And so if you have Global Entry, you can log in and there's the ability to add the APEC business travel card. I think it's $85. And historically, when I did it, it was reimbursed. So I used one of those TSA credits because it was the same biller. I've been told that they've gotten better about amounts.

And so some of the credit cards that reimburse Global Entry won't reimburse this. Interesting. And I'm sure glad that I did get reimbursed because I did not get approved. And this is just a great experience because people who travel internationally that are not from the United States and go through immigration, I've heard so many stories about must be nice to be an American with your passport.

When I go through immigration, people can pull me in rooms and ask me questions. Right. And so this was one where I got to experience the fact that Customs and Border Patrol officials can make whatever decisions they want, and there's not a lot of recourse. Yeah. And so the way this card works is there's 21 members of APEC.

It's mostly -- it's the Asian-Pacific, I think, economic -- Economic cooperation zone. Yeah, cooperation zone. And so most of these countries are in Asia, but they include US, Mexico, and Canada, and Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Japan, Indonesia. And when you get there with the APEC business card, you can go through the Diplomat crew line.

Yep. And you can do this in Canada and Mexico, and it sounds amazing. And the requirements are that you need to do business travel in Asia. So I had gone to this appointment, and I had recently gone on a trip to Asia for work, which I thought, of course, that makes sense.

Right. So I sit down, and it was like, what is your business? And granted, you know, at the time I was probably 38. I don't look like the average business traveler. I probably could have dressed slightly differently. I think I had some, like, neon gooder sunglasses and sweats. But I go to this woman.

I'm explaining. I used to work at a venture capital firm. We did investment in Asia. I went to Asia for business. Now I run a podcast, but we do tours. And we're looking at planning tours in foreign countries, which we do. We did one to Iceland. Yep. At the time, we hadn't done the Iceland trip.

But I was like, we are a travel agency, which we have a travel agency license. We book travel internationally. We go explore properties. So I felt like I had a compelling story. Yeah. And from friends of mine that have gotten an APEC business card, they didn't even get asked questions.

Wow. They just walked in, and they were like, yep, stamp. Good to go. This person put me through the ringer. And the ultimate decision was, yes, you have traveled to Asia for business. And you have a business now that will do business in Asia. But I am not going to approve this because the business you have now is not one where you have traveled to Asia.

So it's like she wanted evidence. That is a real technicality. That I traveled to Asia for the business that I currently am operating. Wow. And for that reason, she said no. Didn't get my $85 back. It's not refundable. Can you reapply? I logged on the other day and I was like, oh, I could just do it again.

So we don't have any plans to go to Asia. My plan is to, after my next trip to Asia, then I'll come in and say, here's a trip I took. I'm taking more trips. Yeah. Can we get this done? Yeah. So I intend to do that. But right now, I was unsuccessful.

And it was kind of a letdown, kind of a defeat. But I've heard it's awesome. I have also heard that when traveling with your family, mixed bag of whether they can come with you if you have this. And so if I'm going to go to Japan with my family, you know, it's not that big deal.

So if you're a frequent business traveler to Asia, you absolutely should add this to global entry. And so many people I know haven't even heard of it. Yeah. But if you're traveling with your family, it'd be easier if we were going to Korea to just go enroll in their reciprocal agreement to go through their immigration faster than it probably would to go apply for this.

Which you also need an appointment. Right. So I'd use appointment scanner and all that kind of stuff. So yeah. And if you also think about like a per-cost basis of a greeter to get you into these countries, let's say you're going to two or three different Asian countries in a year, right?

And it's 500 bucks a greeter to get you and your family through immigration quickly. It's a no-brainer to get an APEC card if you can get it and spend that time and effort doing that. If you can hopefully save you guys that time. But if you have one trip and two people, Yeah.

The APEC card's going to cost you 170 bucks. Right. And you know, maybe a greeter for that trip is actually cheaper. That's the truth. So in some cases, it might not actually be worth it if you're not using it that much. I do think it is a five-year membership, just like Global Entry.

I can't remember if it resets whenever your Global Entry resets. So if you do it on year four, it might only be a one-year. That I don't remember. But it is an add-on to Global Entry. You can't get it separately. This episode is brought to you by Delete Me.

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I think so. I think the key thing here, do your research, right? If you're flying your regular route, you've done 1,000 times before, SFO to LAX, maybe on a Friday afternoon, right? You know kind of what to expect. But if you're doing something new, you're going to a new place, a new country, you know, make sure your documents are in order.

Make sure your credit cards and lounge status are accessible to you. Make sure that your frequent flyer number, all that stuff is in there, so that you have no unexpected surprises. Actually check in early. You know one thing we didn't mention, which is when you're traveling internationally, one thing that the airlines are also supposed to check but don't always is, do you have a return ticket?

Yeah. So there are a lot of countries where in order to get through immigration, you need to show that you're leaving so that you're not going to overstay your visa. And so obviously many of us have international data plans and airports have Wi-Fi, but I would say I would make sure you have downloaded, whether it's a PDF or printed out, a copy of your itinerary to leave and a copy of the hotel or Airbnb and the address.

Yep. Because if the purpose of this episode is to avoid standing in line, if you get to immigration and you can't demonstrate that you're going to leave the country or you didn't know how to fill out the form because you don't know where you're staying, you're going to be stuck in that line.

That's exactly right. And so those are a couple things I would say to print out or make sure you have when traveling that the airline, I can tell you for certain, I've never flown on a flight where the airline checked if I knew the address where I was going in the country.

They've checked if you have a return flight, but I don't always check that. Chris, I'll also say that a lot of documents are fillable online ahead of time for immigration. Right. So even if you're not going to end up using that form that you filled out ahead of time, Japan's a great example of this.

You can fill out an actual written form when you get there, or you can fill out a form online and get a QR code and just simply scan it when you arrive in the country. Either way works. But I would highly recommend if you have the time and don't mind doing it online, doing it online.

It's so much easier. You'll have a couple of days before you fly to be able to do that. And it just takes that one more thing off your plate. So when you arrive in the country, it's easily and done. A lot of countries are getting rid of those forms.

And so the more advanced you can be about filling them out, the better. I've got one more tip. Yeah. It's the cheapest tip on this list. It's super easy. Maybe it's not the cheapest because it's not free, but bring a pen. Yeah, totally. I can't tell you the number of people I've seen that don't have a pen, can't fill out the customs form.

We go to the line, and they're standing there at the desk trying to fill the form out. With a bad pen. And I'm walking right past them because I brought a pen. I brought two pens just in case one of them runs out of ink. Yep. So it seems so silly.

But when you're traveling internationally, make sure you have your travel documents, make sure you've done all this research, and make sure you have a pen. That's my parting advice. It's a great one. Lee, this is great. I love talking about a comprehensive guide to skip the line. Because instead of like we're doing now, if we were flying and waiting in lines for hours, now we're going to go in the lounge and have a little lunch.

Have a little enjoyable afternoon. Thank you, Chris, for making this happen. Thanks for meeting me behind security. And look forward to the next one and to seeing your detailed focus episode on lounges very soon as well. Yes, we're going to go deep on lounges. Stay tuned. Thanks for being here.

Thank you.