[Ghoulish Delight]

I finally bit the bullet and got it this year after I failed to achieve A-List on Southwest.

As long as I had A-List, Pre-Check didn't seem worth it to me. 90% of my flying is on Southwest, A-List got me into the first-class security line. Sure I still had to take my shoes off, and pull my laptop and toiletries out. But I'd gotten that down to a science so it didn't bother me. As long as I could skip the long security line I was happy.

I could still survive like that...but now that I've taken a few trips with pre-check it's definitely more of a bonus than I thought. The lack of shoe/laptop/toiletries rigarmarole means that there's no annoyance after the ID check. Not just because I don't have to deal with those things, but because non one in front of me is either so there's no backup waiting to get your stuff on the belt as people fumble, forget to take stuff out, etc. etc. That difference is really noticeable.

The one thing to keep in mind is that things are occasionally - dynamic with Pre-check. Depending on the individual airport policy and the staffing levels at the time you show up, the procedure might differ flight-to-flight. Sometimes they aren't running a separate pre-check scanner, in which case you get a card that lets you keep your shoes on but you still have to take your laptop and toiletries out. Some airports will have pre-check only at certain checkpoints. That kind of thing. It pays to research ahead of time.

One piece of advice I got too late was (if you still have time to), you might as well go for the Global Entry rather than just Pre-Check. If you do it now, it only costs like $15 more and covers both domestic and international. If you want to add it on later, you've got to go through the process again and pay the full separate price. Even if you don't think you'll travel internationally any time soon - $15 seems like a good gamble to save you a lot of headache if you end up doing so.