Le Chic Geek
Related Articles
Global Entry is a travel game-changer. It not only expedites your re-entry into the United States but also grants you TSA Pre-check. The Global Entry and TSA Pre-check application fee is $100, and first-time Global Entry applicants typically are able to schedule an interview appointment within a week or two of submitting their Global Online Enrollment System (GOES) application. If you have certain credit card perks, you can get the $100 fee waived.
Recently, due to covid backlogs and staffing issues, it has been really difficult to get a Global Entry interview appointment. While Global Entry allows Global Entry applicants to schedule Global Enrollment System (GES) appointments up to 120 days in advance, some applicants are finding their home airports do not have any appointments available in those 120 days.
I ran into this issue with my husband’s Global Entry application. Not only were there no appointments in North Carolina within those 120 days, but we also could not find any appointments at locations within driving distance. We searched any airport we were planning on flying into and came up short. We finally had a backup plan of flying into the Miami airport for fun, since it has absolutely no shortage of appointments. (I wouldn’t have minded flying to Miami for the Global Entry interview, but we also had a heavy travel schedule coming up).
After some random Googling, I came across TTP Alerts. TTP Alerts allows you to pick Global Entry Interview appointment locations and it will monitor them for three months. You can easily swap interview locations in and out as well. So I set up my TPP Alerts for our local locations, plus our future destinations.
We had a trip to New Orleans, and sure enough, an appointment opened up in the New Orleans airport. I booked it immediately (you need to move fast, even with the alerts), and my husband’s interview took less than five minutes. <Insert joke here about New Orleans being the big easy and this was really easy>.
It relieved so much stress and appointment watching and saved us a trip to Miami. It would have been one thing if I knew I had to wait 120 days, but not being able to book any appointment added to the stress levels.
My husband got to fly with TSA Pre-check immediately on his flight back from New Orleans and has been enjoying the perks of Global Entry ever since, thanks to TTP Alerts.
You can find TTP alerts here. It costs $7 for three-months of monitoring and peace of mind.
Disclosure: This is not an ad for TPP Alerts and I was not asked to write this, nor am I being compensated for this post. There really is no reason for a disclosure here other than to disclose I don’t need to disclose a disclosure.
Very helpful. Thank you so much for sharing this great blog.
Hi. Does TPP alerts work for remote appointments?
I don’t believe it does
My site, AppointmentScanner.com does support remote interviews, and also offers text message alerts which are much faster than email.
thanks for the tip!
So if I’m understanding correctly, if we are traveling out of our home country, the USA, in less than 60 days, it is probably too late to apply for GE? Also, is the real advantage to the global entry program to be able to reenter the USA where we are citizens without going through customs? We already have the TSA approval thingy. Is the GE program worth the effort if we only travel abroad about every other year? Thank you
It completely depends on how fast the government approves your application. If you get an approval, the interviews are likely to be really full, but you can use a service like this to find an interview sooner.
GE saves you the really long line at customs, but if you are doing it every other year, you may have to go through a hassle for the interview, so the level of inconvenience may balance out (especially if you already have TSA precheck)
kEEP checking for openings for interviews. Not sure how it happens, but times frequently open. Just checked Orlando Airport and they have many slots in April that opened. Also, atlanta opened slots on Sat and Sundays in March. This is what I routinely check: https://ttp.dhs.gov/schedulerui/schedule-interview/location?lang=en&vo=true&service=UP
Just wanted to let you know it looks like something is wrong with your links. The text doesn’t make sense and the links don’t appear to work.
Thanks! Looks like a malicious code got in.