The Lowdown on Mobile Passport
Mobile Passport is the new app for your phone that, if you are a US or Canadian passport holder, helps speed up your experience at the first part of the Immigration and Customs procedure when you reenter the United States after a trip abroad.
Mobile Passport is not the Global Entry program. That is a program for which you have to pay $100 and, after an initial determination that you are eligible, schedule an inconvenient interview. It entitles you to go to the Global Entry windows after completing the initial Customs form.
The purpose of this post is to detail what Mobile Passport does and does not do and to compare it to the Global Entry program.
The Global Entry program is mostly an advantage for frequent business travelers. As someone who goes out of the country 1-3 times a year, AlteCocker is not inclined to pay money for what amounts to the saving of a few minutes--which will only end at being stuck waiting for baggage. You can check out the advantages of Global Entry here and see if you want to bother with it. AlteCocker is disinclined to pay the fee and figures that, if the government really wants people to enroll, they would not charge $100. It would be inconvenient enough to schlep out to Dulles Airport for the interview. Why would one need an interview anyway? More security theater, no doubt.
Mobile Passport is an application you put on your phone. Before leaving on your trip, you load it up and, at least in AlteCocker's case, take a very ugly selfie of yourself. Once you load the application on your phone, the procedure is self explanatory. Now the paper Customs forms have been antiquated for quite sometime except for foreigners. Foreigners are not eligibile to use Mobile Passport but need to join the fun long line to enter the US. Canadians are, however, eligibile. They should still take a paper form on the airplane and fill it out manually. AlteCocker did get a confused look from the stewardess on the Turkish Airlines plane when she refused an old paper form and said she would do the paperwork on her phone. Maybe she didn't know.
When you land, you have to wait to be connected before you can notify Customs that you have landed. Then you will fill in your airport and your airline through the application and be asked the usual questions about bringing in more than $10,000 in cash or more than your $800 duty free allowance. Once you complete the form on your application upon arrival, you will be given a confirmation code that will appear on your phone. With that code, you skip the line for the passport readers. That is all you skip. With the code, you move on into the line waiting for Immigration agents to clear you with other American citizens who have filled out paper forms or gone to the passport readers and got a confirmation code there. Because Mobile passport is new, most don't know about it. However, there is no special Mobile Passport line after you get the confirmation code on your phone, so it is only the first part of the line that is speedy because you no longer need the first part of the line for paperwork.
When it is your turn to go to the Immigration agent, you place your phone on a reader in front of him/her instead of handing them paperwork. That's it. Then you get a plastic card indicating you have used Mobile Passport and head to the baggage claim with everyone else.
If you paid for Global Entry, you would go to the almost empty Global Entry windows rather than queue for Immigration saving a few minutes and then proceed to the baggage claim. Unless you have only a carry on, AlteCocker sees no advantage to Global Entry because baggage is almost always going to be slower than the initial queue(s).
When your baggage arrives, take your phone and the plastic card from Immigration and pass through the last hurdle as usual--the one where they occasionally open bags. You will need your phone because Customs uses the Mobile Passport code to identify you. You lay it on the reader and give him the plastic card. Generally, you pass right through that step.
This is an excellent attempt to speed eligible people through entry into the United States. It does nothing for foreigners, however, who will be stuck in the usual queues. AlteCocker always thinks about how having to stand in a long queue is not a good welcome to the United States but, then, all passport systems favor nationals for obvious reasons.
This post is based on AlteCocker's experience reentering the US at Dulles Airport in Washington, DC, on September 11, 2016.
If they could only speed up our luggage with the reentry procedures! AlteCocker returned on Turkish Airlines 177. The baggage claim got stuck and there was a long wait for luggage, but that is not Mobile Passport's fault.
Mobile Passport is not the Global Entry program. That is a program for which you have to pay $100 and, after an initial determination that you are eligible, schedule an inconvenient interview. It entitles you to go to the Global Entry windows after completing the initial Customs form.
The purpose of this post is to detail what Mobile Passport does and does not do and to compare it to the Global Entry program.
The Global Entry program is mostly an advantage for frequent business travelers. As someone who goes out of the country 1-3 times a year, AlteCocker is not inclined to pay money for what amounts to the saving of a few minutes--which will only end at being stuck waiting for baggage. You can check out the advantages of Global Entry here and see if you want to bother with it. AlteCocker is disinclined to pay the fee and figures that, if the government really wants people to enroll, they would not charge $100. It would be inconvenient enough to schlep out to Dulles Airport for the interview. Why would one need an interview anyway? More security theater, no doubt.
Mobile Passport is an application you put on your phone. Before leaving on your trip, you load it up and, at least in AlteCocker's case, take a very ugly selfie of yourself. Once you load the application on your phone, the procedure is self explanatory. Now the paper Customs forms have been antiquated for quite sometime except for foreigners. Foreigners are not eligibile to use Mobile Passport but need to join the fun long line to enter the US. Canadians are, however, eligibile. They should still take a paper form on the airplane and fill it out manually. AlteCocker did get a confused look from the stewardess on the Turkish Airlines plane when she refused an old paper form and said she would do the paperwork on her phone. Maybe she didn't know.
When you land, you have to wait to be connected before you can notify Customs that you have landed. Then you will fill in your airport and your airline through the application and be asked the usual questions about bringing in more than $10,000 in cash or more than your $800 duty free allowance. Once you complete the form on your application upon arrival, you will be given a confirmation code that will appear on your phone. With that code, you skip the line for the passport readers. That is all you skip. With the code, you move on into the line waiting for Immigration agents to clear you with other American citizens who have filled out paper forms or gone to the passport readers and got a confirmation code there. Because Mobile passport is new, most don't know about it. However, there is no special Mobile Passport line after you get the confirmation code on your phone, so it is only the first part of the line that is speedy because you no longer need the first part of the line for paperwork.
When it is your turn to go to the Immigration agent, you place your phone on a reader in front of him/her instead of handing them paperwork. That's it. Then you get a plastic card indicating you have used Mobile Passport and head to the baggage claim with everyone else.
If you paid for Global Entry, you would go to the almost empty Global Entry windows rather than queue for Immigration saving a few minutes and then proceed to the baggage claim. Unless you have only a carry on, AlteCocker sees no advantage to Global Entry because baggage is almost always going to be slower than the initial queue(s).
When your baggage arrives, take your phone and the plastic card from Immigration and pass through the last hurdle as usual--the one where they occasionally open bags. You will need your phone because Customs uses the Mobile Passport code to identify you. You lay it on the reader and give him the plastic card. Generally, you pass right through that step.
This is an excellent attempt to speed eligible people through entry into the United States. It does nothing for foreigners, however, who will be stuck in the usual queues. AlteCocker always thinks about how having to stand in a long queue is not a good welcome to the United States but, then, all passport systems favor nationals for obvious reasons.
This post is based on AlteCocker's experience reentering the US at Dulles Airport in Washington, DC, on September 11, 2016.
If they could only speed up our luggage with the reentry procedures! AlteCocker returned on Turkish Airlines 177. The baggage claim got stuck and there was a long wait for luggage, but that is not Mobile Passport's fault.