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With the news that TSA is ramping up photo identification checks for CLEAR Plus members, that begs the question: is having CLEAR even worth it?
This post has been edited with updated information.
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How CLEAR Works Right Now
For those unfamiliar, here’s how CLEAR works — at least, for the moment. (CLEAR is a publicly traded company — with airlines like Delta holding some stake.)
New members sign up online or in person at an airport. The program costs $199 a year per person. (Delta Diamond Medallions are entitled to free CLEAR Plus memberships.)
CLEAR ambassadors (representatives) at airports complete the final stages of registration: verifying photo ID, as well as scanning and recording the member’s fingerprints and retinas.
When a CLEAR member shows up at a participating airport, their biometrics positively identify them. A CLEAR ambassador verifies a successful identification and leads the member directly to the TSA officer checking IDs, thus bypassing the TSA lines. The CLEAR member earns disapproving looks from those waiting in said lines 🙂 .
The CLEAR ambassador tells the TSA officer that the passenger is all clear. The officer waves the passenger through to the baggage scanner.
Here’s What Will Happen
Well, now that TSA may verify everyone’s photo IDs, CLEAR might not be quite so helpful.
The current increase in ID verification for CLEAR users is only the beginning. A TSA spokesperson has confirmed to me that soon all Registered Traveler participants (CLEAR is the biggest such program) will need to present IDs to TSA agents:
“All Registered Traveler participants will be required to present ID, whether physical or digital, to TSA’s Credential Authentication Technology (CAT), with the timeline for implementation to be determined.”
CLEAR’s popularity skyrocketed in recent years. I think that’s due to discounts, its convenience, and CLEAR Plus statement credit opportunities with several American Express® Membership Rewards® cards (terms apply):
- The Platinum Card® from American Express (earn up to $199 in statement credits each year)
- The Business Platinum Card® from American Express (earn up to $199 in statement credits each year)
- American Express® Green Card (earn up to $199 in statement credits each year)
- All information related to the American Express® Green Card was collected independently by Eye of the Flyer and was neither reviewed nor provided by the card issuer.
Some CLEAR lines are longer than TSA PreCheck lines. At Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP), a checkpoint traffic director explicitly warned people not to go into the CLEAR line, saying members would “regret it.”
As I interpret this, during peak travel times, your CLEAR membership basically entitles you to skip (or get far ahead of) the TSA line. It’s sort of akin to elite status with an airline, hotel chain, or casino rewards program.
Think something along the lines of priority bag check and service at airports. Or the priority check-in line at hotels. The express lines for seating at casino restaurants.
What’s Up?
I’m curious why TSA decided to change policy.
Is this a government power trip over the commercial sector?
Is this a security concern? For example, were there rogue or green CLEAR ambassadors who led some people directly to the TSA officers — without proper identity verification?
Is the government trying to force CLEAR out of business — and then somehow collect all their data and start its own biometric identification system? (Let’s face it: the government probably has some stuff on us anyway. Remember when we were fingerprinted as kids “just in case we were kidnapped”? 😉 )
Will I Keep My CLEAR Plus Membership?
My annual CLEAR Family Plan membership cost (grandfathered in several years ago) is entirely covered by my The Platinum Card® from American Express. So, why not? It can’t hurt anything. Although, this change certainly devalues the CLEAR Plus membership benefit.
Final Approach
All CLEAR members may soon need to present photo IDs to TSA officers — even once verified by CLEAR ambassadors.
This change could majorly devalues the CLEAR service — and turn it into a glorified skip-the-line service.
What do you think about this change? Will it affect your plans to enroll in or keep your CLEAR Plus membership?
To see rates and fees for the American Express® Green Card, please visit this link.
For rates and fees of The Platinum Card® from American Express, please visit this link.
For rates and fees of The Business Platinum Card® from American Express, please visit this link.
Advertiser Disclosure: Eye of the Flyer, a division of Chatterbox Entertainment, Inc., is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as CreditCards.com. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers. Compensation may impact how and where card products appear on the site. This site does not include all card companies or all available card offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities. Some of the links on this page are affiliate or referral links. We may receive a commission or referral bonus for purchases or successful applications made during shopping sessions or signups initiated from clicking those links.
Responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
The long lines lately at clear make me rethink. If it wasn’t free with my platinum card, I’d be cancelling.
This TPG article suggests there will be an increase in random checks, not everyone. It also references a WP article that claims the change is due to a security incident last year involving a Clear user. Finally, it talks about CLEAR working with TSA to implement new tech that will address the need to show your ID. https://thepointsguy.com/news/tsa-clear-id-verification-policy/
Check out the OMAAT post I hat-tipped.
Then again, maybe TPG will give CLEAR and TSA some awards and be able to change their rules or something 😉 .
Cancel for sure with the new additional check.
Lately I find it faster to skip the Clear/ TSA pre check line and just use Clear to go through the regular line faster. If it were not free with my AMX and Diamond status I would cancel. Hoping my Diamond status will find new value in 2024 when Delta realizes how many Domond members they have angered with the changes. I have been Diamond from the start of the program and a 3m miler to boot and rarely get upgraded when traveling with my wife and recently not that often on my own .
I think this is nothing more than the US government trying to stick it to Clear, which ultimately offers a competing product to PreCheck.
In the last 5 months, I’ve had to show my photo ID each and every time using Clear. That’s 3-4 times per month.
In Pittsburgh, Denver and Las Vegas, the semi-secret premium TSA lanes are faster than Clear, Clear with PreCheck, PreCheck and, of course, normal TSA.
Please tell me where the “semi secret TSA pre check” lines are and where Clear is located at Pittsburgh airport?
Pittsburgh, Las Vegas, and Denver all have lanes reserved for first-class passengers. The signage varies but in general the signs are nondescript and these lanes are almost always 100% faster than any other security lane. I don’t remember if Pittsburgh has Clear but it certainly has PreCheck. The semi-secret first-class lane has saved me considerable time there. I say semi-secret because there’s nobody to really verify whether you are, in fact, a first-class passenger. In Denver, the sign just says premium and the lane is also shared with handicap passengers and employees.
First class lanes are not the same, you still have to take laptops out, etc.
Over my last 10 trips thru ATL, the Clear + PreCheck line takes longer than regular PreCheck. The reason is that usually only one TSA machine is used for Clear and there is a long queue for this machine. Meanwhile there are 5 machines for non Clear and minimal queues. Because of the queue for the one Clear machine, the TSA officer slows down processing of Clear passengers.
Paid for a CLEAR membership (well, Amex did) but still haven’t used it. Lines of people hovering around the clear monitors have been worse than the short, rapidly moving line at precheck.
You say “This change could majorly devalues the CLEAR service — and turn it into a glorified skip-the-line service.” It is only a glorified skip-the-line service. The changes will not affect that, they will simply make it less valuable tom hold!
The article doesn’t say this at all. It says that the number may increase and that the goal is to eliminate having to show ID completely. Their article headline is misleading and not consistent with the content of the article.
I have Clear, and funnily enough the last two times I travelled through LAX I went directly to TSA Pre. On one instance, there was a line of about 6 people waiting at the Clear line waiting for the agents to get to them, while there were only a couple in the TSA Pre line. In the other case, both lines were almost empty.
CLEAR is not a private company. It went public in 2021 and trades under the ticker “YOU”. As of today, the market cap stands at $3.7B. Some airlines own part of the YOU’s equity. United’s stake is valued at ~$72M, Delta’s ~$204M.
I’d assume most, if not all, people still travel with an ID. I’ve had to show ID for CLEAR many times this year, it’s slightly annoying, but overall not a big deal. Skipping the regular TSA line (and perhaps stadium lines at sporting events and concerts) is the most important benefit and, so far, that doesn’t appear to be changing.
Thanks for the clarification. I made the change above.