TSA Pre Trusted Traveler starts January 24, 2012 at MSP

LAX and LGA, perhaps also JFK domestic, are starting about now too.

Sooner JFK domestic comes the better. I am flying out of there on a (gasp) revenue ticket on Saturday.

I seem to have a talent for purchasing tickets that depart a few days before PreCheck comes to the airport.

I went thru the TSA Precheck at MSP and ATL. As a DL Diamond, I just had to show my boarding pass and ID. I don't recall signing up for anything. My girlfriend got through using the DL gold status I gifted her as a diamond choice benefit. I'm wondering how this program is "safe", I could have gifted DL gold frequent flyer status to *anyone*, and they would have gone thru as a TSA trusted traveler? Or am I missing something here?

All the credential gets you into is the priority line that leads to precheck. You still need to be eligible and selected to go through the actual expedited security as a trusted traveler.

PreCheck is almost equivalant to a background check. If you give the status to someone, they still get a "check" done on them.

At what point was I "selected"? Did Delta already pre-process all their elite members to qualify, or did they check me against a database at the airport and I just didn't notice? All I remember is that the sky priority section of the delta ticketing/checkin desk at ATL had a special exit into the TSA precheck line, where I handed them my boarding pass and drivers license, like any other security line, and then went through the expedited security process.

You were selected when they scanned your BP and it told them to let you into the "special exit". Had you not been selected, they'd have told you to go to the normal security, typically from the regular sky priority exit (I have not done security at ATL since precheck).

Delta has submitted information from elites who opted in to the TSA, and also information from those who have entered their trusted traveler info in their profile. The TSA, in turn, does the selection based on some unknown and "secret" procedure which is supposed to keep whether you are selected or not on a given day "random". When your BP is scanned at the entry to the precheck, the scanner indicates whether you are selected for that day.

I'm 3/3 hope it stays that way. Twice at LGA and one at ATL so far.

Closing the loop on this, my wife told the gatekeeper that she was in a trusted traveller program and eligible for precheck, accessed the skypriority line without issues to access precheck, and was quite impressed at all the things she was told she did not need to do in the precheck lane!