Do military spouses get TSA PreCheck for free?

[00:00:00] Alison: Hello, hello, and welcome back to the show. I wanted to do, it's going to be a pretty quick episode today, but I've been seeing it talked about a lot. And I know that it's something that I personally have Googled many times before. So I thought, you know what, let's just do an episode on it. The purpose of the show is to educate and disseminate information.

[00:00:22] Alison: So here we go. All right. T S a pre check. It is, it is one of the most Googled questions for military spouses. Do military spouses get TSA pre check for free? No, no, you do not. TSA pre check is only free to active duty military members and DOD civilians. Okay. So how it works is when you're booking flight like the DTS system, defense travel system, you enter your defense department ID number, which is the 10 digit number on the back of your CAC common access card when asked for the known traveler number. So that's how it works for military.

[00:01:06] Alison: It, it is, so it is free for military. It is not for spouses. However, Oh, so here's the other thing too. Okay. So then if your spouse, your military member has TSA pre checked for free and you're going to fly with them, do you also get TSA pre check? No. This is a fun game, isn't it? You, you, okay. So TSA pre check.

[00:01:32] Alison: If you have a child that is 12 years of age or younger, they may go into the TSA pre check line with an adult and not be TSA pre check themselves, 12 and under. If they're 13 or older, then they have to have their own TSA pre check. So how much does TSA pre check cost? Is it worth it? It's that's a great question and it's up to you.

[00:02:02] Alison: I think it depends honestly on how much you travel. Is it worth it? If you think about traveling and getting to the airport and trying to get you and whoever else you might be traveling with through security and all of the things it can be very stressful and being able to minimize the amount of time that you are standing in line at security can be a big stress reliever.

[00:02:27] Alison: So I do believe that it is worth it. It is as of April of 2023, it's 78, which covers the cost of background check and their operational costs, and then once you are approved, your membership is good for five years. So it's 78 for five years. And then you would have to renew it at that point in time.

[00:02:50] Alison: So I don't think that that's really bad. But that's a good thing to know. That it should be 78 or right around that range. Because there's other people, you know, that might be phishing schemes and things like that. That are trying to steal your credit card information. They're like, TSA PreCheck for, you know, 139.

[00:03:10] Alison: 99. No, don't do that. Don't do that. Okay. So there are though, we've been talking recently about credit cards and travel hacking, right? We were talking about travel hacking with camouflage and perks a few weeks ago. And there are many credit cards that have the TSA pre check fee waived. The American express platinum card.

[00:03:36] Alison: offers. So what it is, is they offer a statement credit. So you would pay for it with the, that credit card, and then you get a statement credit when it, after it comes back. So that's how that works. So there's the Aero plan credit card, the American Express platinum card, the American Express business platinum card, Bank of America premium rewards card, Capital One Venture Rewards credit card.

[00:04:00] Alison: And there might be some other ones too, but those are just like kind of the, kind of the big ones that offer discounts for TSA precheck or that offer a credit for TSA precheck. And again, TSA precheck is good for five years. So I personally think it's worth it. I did it. I unfortunately did it before we had.

[00:04:21] Alison: That's our American Express platinum card. So I didn't get to use the benefit of the of the waved feet for that, but, okay. So then to piggyback on top of that, this is another one that's Googled frequently and I have also Googled it myself is you know, you're standing in line, you're ready, ready to get on the plane and they call for military to board.

[00:04:48] Alison: And this is the thing. So every airline is different. And then I feel like depending on who the gate agent is, it's also different on when you are, who boards first and whatnot okay, so

[00:05:06] Alison: let's go down the line. All right. American airlines, let's military personnel board at the same time as those flying first class. That's pretty sweet. You get to go on before that Southwest. Military and they, they just updated this in 2022. It used to be, it was only military flying in uniform and there's quite a few branches of service that do not allow you to fly in uniform.

[00:05:31] Alison: So that was really kind of excluding a lot of people. So they updated their policy. to include non uniformed military travelers. So you get to board in between groups A and B. So A gets to get on first and all their pre boarding stuff for them. For United Airlines, you get to board before group one.

[00:05:52] Alison: So that's the pre boarding group for United Airlines Delta Airlines. Invited to board with the Delta comfort plus passengers. So that is also very early in the boarding process, like the pre boarding process. And then JetBlue, also allows early boarding. Alaska is a pre board you get on before everybody else does.

[00:06:19] Alison: Spirit Airlines also does priority check. And I don't know what time that works. Okay. So that's for the military members, military spouses. This is where it gets a little bit tricky. So if you are flying with your military member, you are allowed to board with them. If in, in the pre boarding process.

[00:06:41] Alison: Okay. So I actually, let's caveat this here real quickly. That I just want to say. that what I share with you on the show, I try to be really careful with my research and that I'm looking at reputable websites. If I'm looking up military stuff, like I'm going to a military site, like I try to be very careful where, where I get my information from so that I'm giving you correct information and my own experiences.

[00:07:10] Alison: However, I might not get it right every time because remember if you listen back to the trailer of the show, this is not a look at me. I figured it all out podcast. It's a come with me. We'll figure it out together. So I'm researching this stuff based on what you guys are asking about. So I'm just sharing with you the research that I found and I'm there may be holes here and there.

[00:07:33] Alison: I actually had someone reach out to me recently about housing. And when I did the episode on should you rent, should you buy, should you live in military housing that you cannot live in, you cannot get on the list for military housing and less. you have orders. And so she reached out to me and she was like, Hey, I just wanted to let you know that I worked for a housing private what do you call them?

[00:08:04] Alison: Who are they? The private privatized housing company, Corvia, Corvia, C O R V I A S. They allow you to get on the waiting list without having orders. So that is really good to know. Let me. Okay. So those, and that's a, and that's really small. Cause again, when I share information, again, it's, it's my experience, you know, we've lived in housing in multiple different places.

[00:08:32] Alison: And my experience is you can't get on the list until you have orders. And that's what I've heard other people experience as well. Corvass 

[00:08:39] Alison: Allows you to get onto the waitlist without having order. So they're small. There's not a ton of them They are at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Fort Meade Army. They're all army. Fort Liberty Army Fort Novosel in Alabama, Fort Johnson in Louisiana Fort Sill in Oklahoma and then Fort Riley, Kansas. So those are all army bases.

[00:09:03] Alison: So if you are going to any of those places, you can get on the waiting list without having order. So as soon as you know, you're gonna go there, you can get on the waiting list. That's really good information to have. , okay, so I just wanted, that was a little bit of a side tangent. But I just wanted to share that this is my experience and what I, the information that I'm finding online.

[00:09:24] Alison: So, military spouses and families, in my experience, it is not explicitly stated in airlines. Literature, if you go and look for it, cause I have done a deep dive looking for it before. It is really the military member that the benefit is extended to. If the family happens to be traveling with the military member, then that benefit is extended.

[00:09:49] Alison: If you are not traveling with your military member, it's just you and your kids say you can try. I'll say that you can try and see if they'll let you board. And sometimes the answer is yes. Again, it's so, it's so random. Sometimes it's yes and other times they'll literally laugh in your face and say, no, it's not for you.

[00:10:16] Alison: Which is horrifying to happen because I feel like what it says, okay, so here's, here's the argument that I think you can have is like, well, you're not the military member because you, you know, you get some people that are, Like I'm a military spouse, so I deserve blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I don't think that that's really the right term.

[00:10:40] Alison: Do I feel like we should be extended the same courtesy? Yeah, I do. Yeah, I do. And the reason why is because. Straight up military family serve to, we serve to, we get, we get uprooted and schlepped all over the country and left on our own and are put in extreme circumstances that our civilian counterparts just don't have to face.

[00:11:09] Alison: And so do I think that we deserve it? Yeah, I do. But you're going to get those people that are like, Oh, you're just a dependent and screw you. You don't know what you're talking about. I don't want to hear it. So, okay, sorry. So if you are flying by yourself, here's my, this is a personal experience that I had.

[00:11:26] Alison: We were taking the girls to to Disney world for their fall break. And Michael was meeting us there because he was on travel. So it was me and the girls flying together and I can't, something happened with our flights. I can't remember what it was when we were flying. Oh, I think the flight got canceled or something and So we were trying to get, we finally got moved to another flight, but we got, we were way, way, way back on the, on the list.

[00:12:00] Alison: So this was with Southwest. And and you know, Southwest doesn't assign seats. It's a free for all. I hate that. Oh my gosh. So so we were in like this. C boarding group. And, you know, I'm flying with, with my, you know, nine and 10 year old. So that's not really ideal. We, we want to, I want to be able to sit with my kids.

[00:12:21] Alison: So the, the customer service rep that I was talking to on the phone, he was like, just board with the the kids group, right. Or with the, with the military. And so when we were flying from here, from Denver to Orlando, No issue. They said military. And so I went up, I had my ID, the guy didn't even look at my ID.

[00:12:48] Alison: He was like, thanks, thanks. Welcome aboard. Right. And we got right on the plane. No issue. When we were flying home, we were in the same situation and we had a connecting flight that where the time was really short. So we wanted to get on early. And so they called military and I go up to the thing and the lady literally laughed at me and was like, no.

[00:13:08] Alison: And I was like, it says active duty on here. AD that's what that means. It means active duty. She's like, yeah, no. And it felt horrible because it felt like she was saying that I didn't matter. That's what it felt like to me. And it was, I hate it. It sucked. It was absolutely awful and I hated it. And you could be sitting there saying, you know what though?

[00:13:30] Alison: It's not for you. That benefits not for you. And I hear you. But what is frustrating to me is that there's no consistency. Again, we flew from Denver to Florida. No issue welcome aboard and we're flying home from Orlando and they're like laugh in my face and say no not for you. So My advice if you are traveling without your military member is to just go with your seat Unless you want to potentially be embarrassed at the gate when they say, no, you're not allowed to board.

[00:14:03] Alison: So but if you are with your military member, they I've never had anybody say anything about the rest of the family, not being able to board with him at the same time. So, okay, well, that's it for today until next time.