__________ is/are overrated.

[webny99]

All this talk about the inconvenience of flying, and no one has touched on the real inconvenience -- limits on how much you can take with you.

If  you're traveling by car, you can pack as much as the car will hold and you're good. Extra shoes? A cooler full of pop so you don't have to buy it from overpriced hotel vending machines? Snacks for the week? A couple of extra pairs of shoes? Your laptop and camera? Sure!

I think the context of 8-10 plane journeys per year (round-trip?) is very important.  ...

It also tends to go with lifestyle adjustments, such as careful choice of carry-on luggage and pre-optimization of packing, that make it easier to accommodate time, space, and weight constraints when flying.

This is an interesting juxtaposition. Car travel simultaneously allows you to bring more with you, and requires you to bring more with you by virtue of taking longer. A 15-hour road trip requires a lot more "supplies" (such as drinks, snacks, and entertainment options) than a 2-hour flight.

[thenetwork]

Re: Airport security

As much as I miss allowing non-passengers to pass through security to meet their party at the gates, on the other hand it's nice as a passenger to be able to traverse through the terminal(s) without all that extra foot traffic in my way.

Unless you are on a long layover, or waiting to board at a gate, most foot traffic in the concourses have a set place they are going (connecting flight, bathroom, food, baggage claim...so you don't run into those jams when someone arrives off the jet way and has to get hugged by 3 or more people waiting for their arrival.

Many of the hub airports are bad enough in the morning and afternoon with all the connecting flights.

[thspfc]

As much as I miss allowing non-passengers to pass through security to meet their party at the gates

You can still try. When I flew out of O'Hare in August, nobody checked my boarding pass. Both security and the gate agent only looked at my passport. I don't know how that happened, or if they knew from my passport that I was supposed to be flying, but it sure seemed like I could have gotten all the way on the plane without a boarding pass.

Security requests to see your boarding pass when you don't have one? "Oh, no, I forgot to screenshot it and it's not loading!" They won't let you through, but you could go to the back of the line and leave without being arrested.

[webny99]

Yeah, it's still possible to get through security without a boarding pass, with a good reason and some requisite paperwork. Not to mention airport employees and everyone that works at the stores and restaurants behind security.

[formulanone]

As much as I miss allowing non-passengers to pass through security to meet their party at the gates

You can still try. When I flew out of O'Hare in August, nobody checked my boarding pass. Both security and the gate agent only looked at my passport. I don't know how that happened, or if they knew from my passport that I was supposed to be flying, but it sure seemed like I could have gotten all the way on the plane without a boarding pass.

Security requests to see your boarding pass when you don't have one? "Oh, no, I forgot to screenshot it and it's not loading!" They won't let you through, but you could go to the back of the line and leave without being arrested.

They know from the passport number or identification if you're supposed to fly on that date or not; perhaps a few hours afterwards if it's a very early morning flight. The airlines request it ahead of time and store it.

They won't arrest you without a boarding pass, they'll just suggest you leave the line if you don't have some sort of airport/airline access pass.

Now, I've heard of cases where you can refuse identification (or if it's lost/stolen), but apparently you need to fill out a good bit of paperwork and verification swearing that you're a citizen or whatever, and supposed to be on a flight. I haven't seen this process directly, but I figure it has to take up extra time for the pat-downs and extra questions that ensue.

[kphoger]

Yeah this is a way in which the liquids policy is sexist. I just use the shampoo hotels provide when I'm away from home, and I have no use for conditioner or moisturizer. My wife is checking a bag or having to decant her various toiletry gels into 3 oz containers.

Isn't it sexist to assume that women need more "pamper and primp" items for a trip?  I, for one, take showers much more frequently than my wife, therefore I use way more shampoo than she does.  I also use hair gel, while she doesn't use any product in her hair at all.  She does occasionally use a facial cleanser in the shower, but she doesn't on trips.

Yes, everyone that has $382 (average flight cost in the US) has $78.

Honestly, I find that rather condescending of you, to assume that anyone who can afford $382 can afford $460, plus the time off and gas money it might take to go and actually get TSA PreCheck in the first place.

I think you took that too... figuratively?

I meant it in a literal sense, as in, if someone has $382 they could choose to spend $304 on a flight and $78 on Pre-Check if they so chose to prioritize a hassle free security experience over a more expensive flight.

What?  Why bring up the average price of a plane ticket at all, if your solution is just for a person to buy a cheaper ticket?  News flash:  if someone struggles to afford an average-priced plane ticket, then chances are they're already buying the cheapest ticket available.

And $382 is just an average, anyways. Plenty of flights can be had for less than $382, especially on shorter and more popular routes, as you noted yourself. But plenty of flights cost more than $382, too - so Pre-Check is still only about 25% of the cost of a single flight, on average. Yet it continues to benefit you on future flights, so if you took three flights, it would be only 7% of the total spent; if you took five flights (even if it was one per year for five years), it would only be 4% of the total spent, and so on. But obviously, a 25% "upcharge" is too much for most people to consider using it just once - it must be considered in the context of one's long-term travel patterns, not just a single flight.

I don't care what the base price of the ticket is.  If the ticket prices is $65, it's still wrong to assume that, if someone is buying that ticket, then they can obviously also afford an additional $78.

And you're way too hung up on percentages.  Either a person has the extra money, or they don't.

The last time my wife and I flew anywhere together (sixteen years ago), it was because one of her relatives had died and we needed to get to Minnesota for the funeral.  No time to plan ahead, no time to save up.  In fact, she was eight or nine months pregnant, so any savings we might have had should be going toward the baby.  In such a situation, a $382 plane ticket could all but wipe out a newlywed couple's bank account.

$382 in 2007 is not $382 today. According to current estimates, $382 today would be about $260 in 2007, after accounting for inflation. Also, TSA Pre-Check did not exist in 2007, as it was established in 2013. But in such a situation, TSA Pre-Check likely wouldn't have been a priority for you anyways, since you didn't fly very much (is that safe to assume?) and were focused on saving for other, more important life priorities.

I don't care about inflation.  I don't remember the price of the ticket, and I don't care to.  It doesn't matter what year we last flew together.  My point is that it was an unexpected trip that could not be planned ahead for.  It was at a time in our lives when $78 (or $53 or whatever) was a big expense.

And you're right about not flying frequently and saving for other priorities.  But what you don't seem to comprehend is that some people prefer to save for other priorities even if they do fly frequently.  Or at least, when they weight the pros and cons, the pros don't necessarily outweigh the cons in their mind the way you obvoiusly think they do.

But someone who can afford a plane ticket can afford to ...

There you go again.  Assuming that everyone who flies isn't putting their last couple of bucks into that plane ticket.  That only the already-priveleged board commercial flights.  It's just not true.

TSA is a must-have if you want hassle-free security.

I want hassle-free security.  But that doesn't mean I'm willing to pay extra for it.  It is not a must-have.

[kphoger]

I prefer traveling by almost any other mode to traveling by air:  rail, bus, driving, even hitchhiking (although I haven't done that last one in years).
I prefer to be treated like a respectable member of society, not as a strange cross between convict and cattle.

Have you ridden a Greyhound in the last 20 years? I rode one in 2009, and they treated me like utter shit. A lot of shifty types ride the buses, which I guess is why they are rude, but they shouldn't be rude when you haven't done anything.

Yes.  Not since getting married, I think, but literally the first time I took Greyhound was 20 years ago exactly (well, I suppose it was in March 2003, so a hair longer than 20 years ago).  So yes, all of my Greyhound experience has been in the last 20 years.

Greyhound treats its passengers as luggage.  As an inconvenience.  As unimportant.  Yes, I get that.

But I've never gone to a Greyhound station with the full expectation that every single passenger would have to half-undress just to prove they're not sneaking weapons onboard.

And no Greyhound station has given me the cattle-like feeling of winding through this maze-like chute and that maze-like chute to get through the whatever three lines are required to get from front door to airplane, fearful to step out of place, surrounded by scores of other animals passengers making their same slow-moving progress toward whatever counter and man with a cattle prod badge is next down the path from pen to truck vestibule to gate.

Besides which, I've also traveled by bus in Mexico, which is an entirely more pleasant experience than here in the USA.  My most recent bus trip was in Mexico, not quite 200 miles in length, including one transfer, a year and a half ago.  It was part of a trip that also included flying (ICT→DFW→MTY then LRD→DFW→ICT), and the bus part of that trip was definitely more enjoyable than the airport part.

[kphoger]

This is an interesting juxtaposition. Car travel simultaneously allows you to bring more with you, and requires you to bring more with you by virtue of taking longer. A 15-hour road trip requires a lot more "supplies" (such as drinks, snacks, and entertainment options) than a 2-hour flight.

As someone who has hitchhiked overnight before, I chuckle at the idea that traveling by car "requires" you to bring more stuff.  No it doesn't.  How much you pack is entirely up to you.

My road trips over the years have generally ranged from 650 to 1100 miles one-way, and I never pack snacks or drinks in the car.  When it's lunch time, we stop for lunch.  If one of us gets thirsty, we pick something up at a gas station.  And entertainment options?  Like what?  I get just as bored on a two-hour flight as on a long road trip—more, in fact, because a roadgeek always has something to catch his eye down on the ground.  A book is about all I need in either case.

[webny99]

I don't care what the base price of the ticket is.  If the ticket prices is $65, it's still wrong to assume that, if someone is buying that ticket, then they can obviously also afford an additional $78.

That wasn't the assumption. Any discussion of the value of Pre-Check, which is good for five years, is necessarily based on a long-term travel outlook and travel priorities, not on a single flight.

And you're way too hung up on percentages.  Either a person has the extra money, or they don't.

Percentages, yes. But mostly, context. The price relative to what you're actually paying for (the flight) is very important context. It's personal value proposition that necessarily requires a medium- to high volume of air travel. If you don't travel by air or do so only rarely, you shouldn't be considering Pre-Check to begin with - regardless of whether or not you have the money.

But what you don't seem to comprehend is that some people prefer to save for other priorities even if they do fly frequently.  Or at least, when they weight the pros and cons, the pros don't necessarily outweigh the cons in their mind the way you obvoiusly think they do.

That's where this (↓) comes into play:

Time to poll the audience to see who they agree with.

Actually, I would be interested to know at what frequency of air travel people think TSA is worth it.. while understanding that can be a tricky question for people who don't fly much, or fly for work and didn't pay for it out of pocket.

But someone who can afford a plane ticket can afford to ...

There you go again.  Assuming that everyone who flies isn't putting their last couple of bucks into that plane ticket.  That only the already-priveleged board commercial flights.  It's just not true.

No, you must have stopped reading. That wasn't my assumption at all. Of course it wasn't, or everyone that boards a commercial flight would have Pre-Check, and regular security would cease to exist.

My assumption is that Pre-Check is a value proposition and that for many individuals, it clearly isn't worth the value. But if it was worth the value to them based on their level of air travel and desire for less hassle at the airport, it is not an unthinkable nor unattainable expense to save up for with some planning.

[kkt]

As much as I miss allowing non-passengers to pass through security to meet their party at the gates

You can still try. When I flew out of O'Hare in August, nobody checked my boarding pass. Both security and the gate agent only looked at my passport. I don't know how that happened, or if they knew from my passport that I was supposed to be flying, but it sure seemed like I could have gotten all the way on the plane without a boarding pass.

Security requests to see your boarding pass when you don't have one? "Oh, no, I forgot to screenshot it and it's not loading!" They won't let you through, but you could go to the back of the line and leave without being arrested.

Or they detain you for an hour while they check your record for warrants, and give you a written warning so that they will arrest you if you ever try it again.

Maybe take away your hard-earned TSA Precheck too.

[J N Winkler]

Another variable is the type of air journey.  A fair few of mine have been transatlantic, meaning security checks form just a small fraction of the total hassle factor, or been entirely outside the US in countries that have no obligation to honor TSA Pre-Check.

Besides the time savings--which I certainly agree would be justified above a certain frequency threshold--the relaxed search protocol is more likely to be valuable to fliers who don't want to check luggage at all or who are anxious about repatriating their belongings once they clear security.

[webny99]

This is an interesting juxtaposition. Car travel simultaneously allows you to bring more with you, and requires you to bring more with you by virtue of taking longer. A 15-hour road trip requires a lot more "supplies" (such as drinks, snacks, and entertainment options) than a 2-hour flight.

As someone who has hitchhiked overnight before, I chuckle at the idea that traveling by car "requires" you to bring more stuff.  No it doesn't.  How much you pack is entirely up to you.

It generally requires more relative to what you'd pack for a flight. You may pack lightly for both... but chances are, you'll pack at least a little bit more for a car trip vs. a flight to the same destination.

My road trips over the years have generally ranged from 650 to 1100 miles one-way, and I never pack snacks or drinks in the car.  When it's lunch time, we stop for lunch.  If one of us gets thirsty, we pick something up at a gas station.

Wait a minute. On a trip of that length, packing your own drinks, snacks, and meals would be considerably cheaper than buying them, since you tend to pay a premium for restaurant service and convenience store items purchased ad hoc. With a family, I would think the difference would add up to, well... $78, at least, and possibly a lot more.

Just as one basic example, $5 for a 24-pack of water bottles to throw in the trunk would save about $20 vs. buying 24 individual water bottles at a low estimate of $1 each.

And entertainment options?  Like what?  I get just as bored on a two-hour flight as on a long road trip—more, in fact, because a roadgeek always has something to catch his eye down on the ground.  A book is about all I need in either case.

I don't know... books, CD's, headphones. Depends on one's preferences and if kids are involved.

[webny99]

Besides the time savings--which I certainly agree would be justified above a certain frequency threshold--the relaxed search protocol is more likely to be valuable to fliers who don't want to check luggage at all or who are anxious about repatriating their belongings once they clear security.

Checked luggage is another whole subject. A single checked bag can cost half as much as TSA Pre-Check or more on its own, depending on the airline. They obviously have to be checked at the airport, so there's another line to wait in; have increased potential to be lost in transit, especially if you have connecting flights; and have to be claimed at the baggage claim, so there's another delay (usually more in the form of a sprawl than a line, but can still take 10-15 minutes or more).

I would not even consider a checking a bag unless I was going to be away from home for more than a week.

[bugo]

I'm making assumptions.

Yes. Yes, you are. Other points addressed above.

It's a lot of money to a broke person. You can't even seem to grasp this. Try to have some empathy.

I understand that $78 is a lot of money, but I do not understand the lack of contextual awareness on this issue. Flights cost a lot more than $78, so the $78 is only worth it if you're a semi-regular flyer. If you're not, then by all means, please don't throw $78 to the wind.

Now you're moving the goalposts.

[Rothman]

*kicks a ball through the goalposts*

*wins*

[Hunty2022]

- boy bands
- the month of September
- Halloween

[Duke87]

Actually, I would be interested to know at what frequency of air travel people think TSA is worth it.

For one datapoint, my former employer who paid for my initial enrollment had a policy that they would reimburse for PreCheck if you had taken 5 business trips by plane in the last 365 days. Besides the enrollment fee they also happily paid for the cost of driving to and parking at JFK for my appointment, and let me do all this on the clock.

Had my employer not been so willing I likely would have been more stubborn about this and unwilling to spend my own money on it out of being cheap. But that was also based on my mindset then, which has since shifted.

My current employer will not reimburse for precheck under any circumstances, and I do not frequently fly for work anymore. Nonetheless, I still paid out of pocket to reup my Precheck last year because, well, I'm too used to having it now. And I have developed a habit of taking several plane trips a year for strictly personal purposes that I never had before I started flying for work, so I do still fly a decent amount.


Overall I would argue that if you reliably fly at least once a year, it is worth signing up for. However, I would also argue that once you have signed up letting it lapse is not an option unless you know for a fact you are never going to board a commercial airplane in the United States ever again. Once you experience PreCheck you can never go back to the pleb line.

Isn't it sexist to assume that women need more "pamper and primp" items for a trip?  I, for one, take showers much more frequently than my wife, therefore I use way more shampoo than she does.  I also use hair gel, while she doesn't use any product in her hair at all.  She does occasionally use a facial cleanser in the shower, but she doesn't on trips.

It's not a question of more, it's a question of demanding ones own specific product instead of just using whatever the hotel provides.

In my experience that is very much a feminine trait (naturally arises from long hair being higher maintenance), but yes it is a fair point that this is not an ironclad correlation.

[jakeroot]

having to rearrange things so your car is less likely to be a target for random theft.

This is why I would never want to own a SUV, CUV, or pickup truck.  Nobody can see what's in your trunk unless it is open.

Coming from someone who has never owned anything without a hatchback, I would argue the uncertainty of the trunk's contents may actually encourage someone to break in. Unless you keep gobs of stuff in your car, hatchbacks clearly allow thieves to see into your car and can decide to break in or not. Trunks are just a giant question mark (kind of like "the box" from the "Homer Goes to College" episode from the Simpsons), almost encouraging thieves to break in just to find out. I never kept anything in my hatchback, so thieves could clearly see breaking in wasn't worth it.

I used to street park in a dangerous area (this stretch of S 4th in Tacoma, WA -- my VW Golf is in the picture with the purple University of Washington license plate); most cars were broken into once along this stretch, but never mine. The stick-shift may have also been a deterrent, but the clear lack of any content worth stealing probably sealed the deal for most potential thieves.

[Bruce]

Adding to the earlier flytalk: some airports do offer visitors passes, but one has to pass through the normal security line anyway. I've used this to help relatives at the gate who would have a hard time with Sea-Tac, but wouldn't really want to do it that often.

Next week, I'll be making my way to Toronto and the itinerary includes a really dumb backtrack. I'll be traveling 3 hours from my home to Sea-Tac only to turn around and fly to Vancouver, since I really wanted to take a Dreamliner red-eye. Adding the flight and extra wait times at a US airport versus a Canadian one, it would have actually been faster to drive across the border (but then I'd have to pay to park for a week).

[J N Winkler]

Coming from someone who has never owned anything without a hatchback, I would argue the uncertainty of the trunk's contents may actually encourage someone to break in. Unless you keep gobs of stuff in your car, hatchbacks clearly allow thieves to see into your car and can decide to break in or not. Trunks are just a giant question mark (kind of like "the box" from the "Homer Goes to College" episode from the Simpsons), almost encouraging thieves to break in just to find out. I never kept anything in my hatchback, so thieves could clearly see breaking in wasn't worth it.

The vast majority of my driving experience has been with cars with trunks and has occasionally involved parking in sketchy areas.  I've never had my trunk broken into speculatively.  On the other hand, I've had a thief do about $500 worth of damage to a car door to steal a $30 tripod from the back seat that was in plain view, in a leather-like case that caused it to appear more valuable than it was.

used to street park in a dangerous area (this stretch of S 4th in Tacoma, WA -- my VW Golf is in the picture with the purple University of Washington license plate); most cars were broken into once along this stretch, but never mine. The stick-shift may have also been a deterrent, but the clear lack of any content worth stealing probably sealed the deal for most potential thieves.

Other variables might have been in play, e.g. cluttered interiors hinting at disregarded valuables.  I keep my car interior picked up:  no loose change, no sunglasses case, no nothing.

[kphoger]

My road trips over the years have generally ranged from 650 to 1100 miles one-way, and I never pack snacks or drinks in the car.  When it's lunch time, we stop for lunch.  If one of us gets thirsty, we pick something up at a gas station.

Wait a minute. On a trip of that length, packing your own drinks, snacks, and meals would be considerably cheaper than buying them, since you tend to pay a premium for restaurant service and convenience store items purchased ad hoc. With a family, I would think the difference would add up to, well... $78, at least, and possibly a lot more.

Just as one basic example, $5 for a 24-pack of water bottles to throw in the trunk would save about $20 vs. buying 24 individual water bottles at a low estimate of $1 each.

1.  It is a non-zero cost to buy the groceries with which to prepare a brown-bag lunch.  It is still usually cheaper to do this than to eat out while driving;  however, making a brown-bag lunch that's as filling as, say, a fast-food value menu combo can actually end up costing close to the same as that fast-food combo.

2.  We eat the same number of meals per day, no matter if we're at home or traveling.  If you fly in the morning and then eat lunch and supper at your destination, then that's no different than driving all day and eating lunch and supper on the road—assuming you're eating in restaurants either way.

3.  How much we drink is substantially lower on a road trip.  Part of it is on purpose (to avoid having to take potty breaks all the time), and part of it is the result of doing practically nothing that requires physical exertion all day.  Our family can drive all day without drinking anything between meals, and indeed we do it all the time.  Sometimes we'll pick up a couple of drinks in the late afternoon and share them between the five of us, or whatever.  Again, though (see 2. above), what are you comparing this to?  If you fly, you still have to drink something when you get there, and chances are you're not just filling cups out of the hotel bathroom sink.

And entertainment options?  Like what?  I get just as bored on a two-hour flight as on a long road trip—more, in fact, because a roadgeek always has something to catch his eye down on the ground.  A book is about all I need in either case.

I don't know... books, CD's, headphones. Depends on one's preferences and if kids are involved.

Last time I flew, most people I saw on the plane had books and/or headphones.  They're pretty small and easy to pack.

Checked luggage is another whole subject. A single checked bag can cost half as much as TSA Pre-Check or more on its own, depending on the airline. They obviously have to be checked at the airport, so there's another line to wait in; have increased potential to be lost in transit, especially if you have connecting flights; and have to be claimed at the baggage claim, so there's another delay (usually more in the form of a sprawl than a line, but can still take 10-15 minutes or more).

I would not even consider a checking a bag unless I was going to be away from home for more than a week.

I also hate the prospect of my bag not making it to my destination with me.  This is especially true if I'll be driving from the destination airport to my true destination several hours away.  Last time I flew, the airport was 160 miles from my destination, so there's no way I'd want to be separated from my bag.  The last leg of my return trip was on an ERJ-145, and I didn't even want to have to gate-check my carry-on—just so I didn't have to wait for it upon arriving back to Wichita.  So I used a backpack small enough to count as a "personal item" and packed everything in that, for an international flight departing on a Thursday and returning on a Tuesday.

[Rothman]

The possibility of losing a checked bag is overrated.

[JayhawkCO]

The possibility of losing a checked bag is overrated.

Losing it overall, yes. I agree. But having it delayed to the point where it will seriously inconvenience you, less so. I was supposed to climb a mountain in Bolivia but had to cancel because my luggage got lost in transit and I didn't get it until 5 days later. All of my gear was in my backpack, and, being 6'4", couldn't possibly replace anything in a country where the average man is probably 5'7".

[webny99]

The possibility of losing a checked bag is overrated.

Losing it overall, yes. I agree. But having it delayed to the point where it will seriously inconvenience you, less so. I was supposed to climb a mountain in Bolivia but had to cancel because my luggage got lost in transit and I didn't get it until 5 days later. All of my gear was in my backpack, and, being 6'4", couldn't possibly replace anything in a country where the average man is probably 5'7".

Yes, definitely agreed that the risk of delays >> risk of total loss, especially when connecting flights are involved. And if it's a tight connection, luggage is often delayed to the next flight on that route - which could be a few hours, or a few days.

[kphoger]

And if it's a tight connection, luggage is often delayed to the next flight on that route - which could be a few hours, or a few days.

There's an airport that's closer to where my final destination was last year.  It still would have had me connecting through DFW, but it has a grand total of one flight to/from DFW each week.  So I would have been back home in Wichita already by the time the next flight from DFW came around.

Funny enough, I met someone while I was there who used to work at that airport.  He seemed almost personally offended that I didn't use that airport instead.