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Feedback on Mobile Passport App

Cameron

500+ Posts
I just returned to Raleigh-Durham from London. RDU has the Mobile Passport App capability and I had a great experience with it.

Before leaving the US, I scanned my passport into the app (you're walked through it; easy). If there are multiple family members in your party, you also scan their passports so that you need "one" per family, as with a hand-written landing card.

Before customs, you have to "submit" your app information (what you'd complete on a landing card, plus your previously scanned passport) within four hours of landing.

Since I had a 7 hour flight, I had to wait until I landed, but before deplaning, to submit my passport/landing card information. I tried to submit it using the wifi on American Airlines, but it timed out. As soon as the plane landed, I switched to cellular data and it took only seconds to submit.

In Customs, there is a separate line for Global Entry (I don't have that) and a separate line for Mobile Passport. I was the only person in line in Mobile Passport, but I flew business class, so I was also one of the first passengers off the plane.

You still have to show your passport to the customs agent, and place your iPhone (or Android) on the scanner for the bar code for your landing information to be scanned. A stamped receipt (as usual) is provided, and you hand that over when you exit the customs area.

Bottom line, I think the separate line, rather than the app, made it a very quick process. That said, I don't know why I'd now spend the time and money for a Global Entry unless I were to frequently deplane in an airport without Mobile Passport.

Side bar -- when leaving London at Heathrow, I was asked a lot of questions that someone else mentioned. They asked about what did I do on my trip and vacation wasn't sufficient, they wanted more specific info. Also, when I said I was retired, they asked about what I did before retiring. When I said I was a marketing strategist, they asked me to describe what that job entailed.
 
Cameron thanks for the info on the Mobile Passport App! My niece and I had a discussion on the use of the app, as well as, the pros and cons of Global Entry. She was a proponent of the app big time. It sounds like the app truly streamlined your entry. However, I am still not sure I am a believer.

Now that boarding passes are allowed to be stored on your phone it seems I always get behind the person that has a dirty phone face so it does not read, cannot find it on the phone, has the brightness turned down to save battery power, or the best yet is when I heard one girl say, “I know it would work if my screen was not cracked.” I get so frustrated standing there while the traveler and agent go through some dance to make it work. I am afraid the same would occur with the app. I know that is my problem.

A comment on your sidebar note. In my travels for work back and forth to Europe often between 2008 and 2016, I became very accustomed to the exit interviews. Especially flying out of Amsterdam. Not long after the shoe bomber, I was going though one these interviews when I asked the lady interviewing me the purpose of such interviews. She told me the machines are good at locating weapons, but people are better to identify the person who is the threat. I must admit it was a little unnerving to be asked a series of questions by someone in the authority when you have done nothing wrong. A couple questions one would expect, then a few that are off the wall, and close out with one that requires some level of detail to answer seems to be the modus operandi of these interviewers.

What I did like was the interviews were always done at the departure gate. It was not like you were held up in some line with all the travelers leaving the airport. The line was just the folks leaving on your plane. Sometimes, I think the security in the U.S. relies too much on technology and not enough on human instinct.
 
A comment on your sidebar note. In my travels for work back and forth to Europe often between 2008 and 2016, I became very accustomed to the exit interviews. Especially flying out of Amsterdam. Not long after the shoe bomber, I was going though one these interviews when I asked the lady interviewing me the purpose of such interviews. She told me the machines are good at locating weapons, but people are better to identify the person who is the threat. I must admit it was a little unnerving to be asked a series of questions by someone in the authority when you have done nothing wrong. A couple questions one would expect, then a few that are off the wall, and close out with one that requires some level of detail to answer seems to be the modus operandi of these interviewers.

What I did like was the interviews were always done at the departure gate. It was not like you were held up in some line with all the travelers leaving the airport. The line was just the folks leaving on your plane. Sometimes, I think the security in the U.S. relies too much on technology and not enough on human instinct.

I wasn't complaining, just mentioning it. I can't remember if it was someone on FaceBook or this forum who was wondering about all the personal questions when departing. I was adding to that, but can't find the post on the topic.

I know what you mean about tech failing at the worst time! Last fall, when I returned to Paris on an Air France flight from Biarritz, I went through security with my mobile boarding pass. Somehow, when my bags were about to go through the x-ray and I had to show my boarding pass again, it had disappeared! I was escorted back to the ticket counter, explain about the boarding pass, prove who I was, and get a replacement paper boarding pass. What a hassle!
 
Cameron - I did not think you were complaining, but I know a lot folks are unaware of the exit interviews and freak when they occur. Personally, I think they are good thing. Welcome home!
 

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