Looking for a holiday present for the traveler in your life? TSA PreCheck is an awesome gift… especially considering the limited-time buy one, get one $15 off promotion that’s currently being offered.
A few things to keep in mind: the promotion is only available for first-time customers and not those seeking to renew their membership. You’ll need to enroll yourself as the paid primary customer before you can sign up the second person or find two people wanting to enroll in TSA PreCheck at the same time.
It definitely won’t be a surprise gift, since you and your BOGO friend will have to enroll together, at the same location on the same day, at the same time. If your group is larger than two, you can continue the “buy one, get one” promotion for the others, so a family of four would save $30.
The BOGO $15 off deal ends December 31, so make sure you’re enrolled by then. Make your appointment here by entering your zip code and seeing which centers are closest to you. Often these are inside Staples, Office Max or Office Depot locations. You can also go straight to the website of one of the three main providers—Clear, Idemia or Telos—to preregister. Membership, which lasts five years, costs $77–85 depending on which provider you use.
One last possible crinkle: some enrollment centers operated by Idemia will rebate the $15 discount five days after you pay the full amount. Shouldn’t be a huge deal but, if you’re unwilling, pay attention when you book your appointment since locations that do this will flag it. In this case, you would email a copy of your receipts to the Idemia email; see website for details.
As for the exact benefits of TSA PreCheck: your lane goes faster than the regular one (99 percent of TSA PreCheck passengers wait less than 10 minutes while moving through the airport!), you’ll get to use your own scanning machine(s) to help speed the process along and you can also opt in to touchless ID using your face as your identification.
