CLEAR is a technology company that helps with expediting clearing security at select US airports. The company stores the biometric data of members, allowing them to (typically) skip the ID check, and get straight into the security line. Combined with TSA PreCheck, this is the best setup you can have for clearing security in the US.
CLEAR has just increased the price of its CLEAR Plus membership, both for the primary member, and for those added as part of a family account.
In this post:
CLEAR Plus annual cost increases by $10-20
As of August 1, 2024, the cost of a CLEAR Plus membership has been changed:
- An individual CLEAR Plus membership has increased in cost by $10, from $189 to $199
- Adding someone to a CLEAR Plus family account has increased in cost by $20, from $99 to $119 (you can add up to three people to your account, and they don’t have to be related to you)
The cost of a CLEAR Plus membership has increased drastically over time, both for the primary member, and for members of a family account. For example, up until early 2023, adding someone to a family plan cost $60, then it was increased to $70, then it was increased to $99, and now it has been increased to $119.
Keep in mind that several Amex cards offer CLEAR Plus credits, and those credits have been updated to reflect the price hike. This means an eligible card could still cover the full $199 membership cost.
These price increases are whatever, but…
Nobody likes price increases, though in my opinion CLEAR Plus just isn’t worth paying cash for. So if you’re getting a CLEAR Plus membership through an Amex card, then there’s no price change, since the membership cost will continue to be covered.
My bigger issue isn’t with the price of a CLEAR Plus membership, but rather that I find the whole CLEAR concept to be kind of dumb, at least in terms of its current reality:
- When CLEAR first started, it was a huge time saver, since not many people had it, so you actually saved a lot of time
- Now we’re at the point where basically everyone has CLEAR (tens of millions of frequent travelers), and when everyone can cut the ID check, no one can cut the ID check
- The TSA ID check is really simple nowadays — in many cases you just insert your ID into a reader, and you’re sent on your way, and don’t even have to show your boarding pass
- Meanwhile the CLEAR process just isn’t simple; the CLEAR ambassador has to fingerprint themselves with every passenger, has to ask whether you want to use your fingers or eyes for verifying your identity, then you have to scan your boarding pass, and then a good percentage of the time you still have to show the TSA agent your ID, and never mind the small space through which you have to navigate
- Airport security checkpoints are often so small, and I feel space could be better utilized by expanding other, more efficient screening methods
As someone who has CLEAR, I find myself skipping CLEAR and just using the standard TSA PreCheck line more often than not, and that usually ends up being fastest. That’s despite the fact that I’m cut by a countless number of CLEAR members in line. That means that on average, the existence of CLEAR slows me down rather than speeding me up, and that’s despite being a member.
TSA is working toward introducing a simplified biometric ID check process, and if you ask me, that can’t come soon enough. Hopefully it marks the end of CLEAR, at least in its current implementation at airports.
Bottom line
As of August 2024, the cost of a CLEAR Plus membership has increased. The price has been upped by $10 for the primary member, and by $20 for someone added to a family plan. Fortunately Amex cards with an eligible credit continue to cover the entire amount.
What do you make of this CLEAR Plus price increase?
Like others, I have Clear through my Amex plat. It’s nice to have the option and I use it occasionally, but only when the Clear line is materially shorter than regular pre-check. That said, I would not pay out of pocket for it.
This site has too much hate for clear and the thousands of people that clear employs and pays very good wages.. also people fail to see the benefits and new technology being implemented such as NEXT GEN, that will streamline the process thru Clear. America is a Capitalist country and this is what freedom is all about. Build you community, if clear is not for you, well don’t do it, but don’t be a dictatorship...
This site has too much hate for clear and the thousands of people that clear employs and pays very good wages.. also people fail to see the benefits and new technology being implemented such as NEXT GEN, that will streamline the process thru Clear. America is a Capitalist country and this is what freedom is all about. Build you community, if clear is not for you, well don’t do it, but don’t be a dictatorship and denounce the existence of a Company that Feeds Many Citizens and employ many young people and inject millions in these Same airport to support out security in aviation
No one is saying they don't have a right to exist, sheesh. Just that it doesn't provide the value they claim or used to. Nextgen is a joke... unless clear can make it so you 'don't break a stride' all the way through the luggage scan and metal detectors nextgen will just make the bottleneck for the ct scanners that much worse.
I wonder how much Amex, delta and the like actually pay clear. It is definitely a company that needs scale to be successful, so it seems non-elite/cc members are needing to fill in the revenue gap. Problem like many have pointed out is clear has all but lost its value. I wouldn’t pay for it but get it free a few ways so it sits there…
I would gladly pay more for the premium experience since Pre lines are long now with all the peasants with free card benefits.
That’s certainly the idea of Clear, but they can no longer deliver on it.
CLEAR used to reduce time and friction. Now it often does neither.
Mostly crap
95% of the time clear takes longer than tsa
In San Diego recently it was just closed for the night after 5 PM
In Las Vegas usually the line is longer @ clear
I’d never pay it’s a waste of money other than for free. On a rainy day or a particular airport maybe .They are crooks with the rate raise
Yesterday afternoon at BOS terminal B the precheck line was insane and Clear was empty. It’s the only airport where it is almost always worth it.
I haven't seen any improvements in the experience. Still understaffed. Still the same slow process. One at a time...
I've said it before and I'll say it again...Clear is sometimes useful, but it's not consistently useful enough to open my wallet for. If I didn't get it as a freebie on multiple credit cards, I wouldn't bother with it.
That said, I sailed through Clear at DEN yesterday morning, while there was a decent wait at regular PreCheck.
A couple weeks ago, Clear would have been much faster than regular PreCheck at...
I've said it before and I'll say it again...Clear is sometimes useful, but it's not consistently useful enough to open my wallet for. If I didn't get it as a freebie on multiple credit cards, I wouldn't bother with it.
That said, I sailed through Clear at DEN yesterday morning, while there was a decent wait at regular PreCheck.
A couple weeks ago, Clear would have been much faster than regular PreCheck at LAX T7, but Touchless PreCheck was faster still (by a wide margin).
Because my wife travels much less frequently than me (a trip every 6 weeks or so, vs nearly every week), she sees almost no value in Clear and mocks even my feeble defenses of it.
But something interesting I've noticed in my last couple interactions with Clear is a change in their process that's sped them up considerably. In the recent past, you'd go up and an employee would run you through their scans, then they'd walk you and another traveler up to the TSA agent. Now the process seems to be that an employee still runs you through the scan, then puts you in line, where another employee takes your name, matches it and your face to a list, then hands you off to the TSA agent. It was significantly faster and, in a way that I'm sure was appealing to Clear, moves any backups to the area past the scanning stations, instead of a highly visible line before the scanners.
Last time we used it at PHX, the line for CLEAR was twice as long as TSA Pre and SLOW, so with this increase I tend to think it is no longer the money
Hit or miss. At MSP saved me 25 min
It depends upon the airport *and* the way the line(s) "line up." It's been my experience that CLEAR is faster @ LAS. At SFO, the TSA PreCheck line is usually faster than CLEAR...basically, I size up the length of each line and choose the fastest one...
I have Clear through my Amex Platinum card but definitely wouldn't pay for it. First of all I live in Charlotte and, since AA isn't an investor unlike DL and UA, Clear isn't available at CLT. Like others if it speeds me up I use it but find it hit or miss. I flew to DEN a lot the last couple of years and their overall security screening is horrible. A few times Clear was...
I have Clear through my Amex Platinum card but definitely wouldn't pay for it. First of all I live in Charlotte and, since AA isn't an investor unlike DL and UA, Clear isn't available at CLT. Like others if it speeds me up I use it but find it hit or miss. I flew to DEN a lot the last couple of years and their overall security screening is horrible. A few times Clear was faster but often the line for Clear was longer than Pre Check (and DEN Clear usually takes you to a dedicated TSA agent as opposed to jumping the overall line). LAS is another airport I sometimes get value but, again hit or miss.
I have not had good experiences with clear. One occasion, Thanksgiving, the staff sent me in circles because they were overwhelmed and didn't know what to do. There wasn't even an apology for wasting 30min of my time. Next incident, they walked me to a non precheck line. Next incident, spent 10 minutes just scanning my face because the machine don't like my face. Then lo and behold a smooth clear attempt. Last week I...
I have not had good experiences with clear. One occasion, Thanksgiving, the staff sent me in circles because they were overwhelmed and didn't know what to do. There wasn't even an apology for wasting 30min of my time. Next incident, they walked me to a non precheck line. Next incident, spent 10 minutes just scanning my face because the machine don't like my face. Then lo and behold a smooth clear attempt. Last week I didn't bother with clear because there was only 2 people in tsa precheck. Good thing because the 3 people next to me on clear had some issue and didn't move an inch by the time I was pass the id check. I don't intend to use clear much going forward.
Clear is stupid because the ID check is stupid. It does nothing to address security, because the screening itself is what provides security. Major airports in Europe don’t an ID check at security, and things work just fine there.
Let’s focus on making the screening itself better so that this totally wasted effort can die once and for all.
I still don't understand the CLEAR hate on this website.
Is it something you should use all the time? No, of course not, but you can make that judgment with a quick 5-second assessment of security lines.
I would say on average CLEAR helps me ~50% of the time. At smaller airports I'd rather just stand in a short Pre-Clear line than deal with the eye-scanning and extra conversations.... but mid-week SEA/DEN? You'd be a fool not to use it.
Yeah, it's really odd. 90% of people have CLEAR for free w/ Amex Plat already, it's not like people are paying extra for it.
If you're not traveling enough to even get value from CLEAR a single time, then the Amex Plat is not the card for you.
The last time I used Clear was two weeks ago at SeaTac as the line looked to be quicker than the Pre-Check line, and I watched the people I would have been behind fly through the ID check before I even got to the Clear machine - and THEN I found out I hadn't done the new biometric update. I almost never use it now but since my Amex comps it I keep it active.
I'm sorry to hear that, Trevor. In my experience that is quite rare for SEA unless it is a weekend or morning departure. For mid-week afternoon/evening departures CLEAR saves considerable time vs regular preclear.
Never paid for Clear as I get it free from Delta status. Agree the benefit in having it is way down with so many people having it but it is still a huge benefit depending on the airport and time of flight. At MSP and DEN it makes a huge difference depending on the time you get there. So, will keep it.
@ben you have to try tsa touchless ID it’s amazing and very few people are using it yet I’ve used it a few times in terminal c in EWR and terminal 7 in LAX and it’s amazing I already cancelled my clear membership right after I tried this.
I'm excited to try it at LAX when I fly United next week!!
Shhhh. Don't tell anyone about Touchless PreCheck. You'll ruin it like Clear's been ruined.
I’ve had Clear for a few years. I get it free as a diamond medallion and then use the Amex credit for my partners access. However. If I had to pay more than $45 I would drop it like it’s hot. I so rarely use it anymore because I found I would watch someone entering the precheck at the same time and they ALWAYS beat me. There have only been 2 times where it saved...
I’ve had Clear for a few years. I get it free as a diamond medallion and then use the Amex credit for my partners access. However. If I had to pay more than $45 I would drop it like it’s hot. I so rarely use it anymore because I found I would watch someone entering the precheck at the same time and they ALWAYS beat me. There have only been 2 times where it saved me time. Yes, it’s nice to know that I have it so if there is some sort of huge back up I have an option. But every time I get one of the surveys emails I reply asking them what their value proposition is because their technology and process, like you point out, are antiquated, even when compared to the newer options the TSA are working on… and that is saying something!
Get it together, Clear!
Not to mention AA’s ongoing crusade against Clear. Really doesn’t make sense for MIA based folks to use it unless you’re stuck on one of the unlucky AA flights leaving from third world concourse E
I thought it was just DFW. Didnt know it was all AA hubs.
Not sure about all AA hubs but Clear is not at CLT.
As someone mentioned, TSA has begun rolling out a facial recognition method instead of the physical ID check. Think of it as the exact same thing as CLEAR, but without having to show a boarding pass, and it being free for everyone else.
As a matter of fact, Lucky, I used it at one of your backyard airports in FLL just this week. The CLEAR line was backed up, only a handful of people...
As someone mentioned, TSA has begun rolling out a facial recognition method instead of the physical ID check. Think of it as the exact same thing as CLEAR, but without having to show a boarding pass, and it being free for everyone else.
As a matter of fact, Lucky, I used it at one of your backyard airports in FLL just this week. The CLEAR line was backed up, only a handful of people in the standard Precheck line, so I skipped CLEAR and made it out ahead of most of those folks. It's really quick, and TSA rolling this out on a broader scale can't come quick enough.
I got CLEAR for free through an Amex Offer a few years ago and realized how useless it is for me. I tend to fly out of smaller airports a lot, my home airport doesn't have CLEAR, and even when I fly through a bigger airport, often only certain checkpoints have CLEAR and I wasn't about to try and hunt them down. I've never waited more than 5 minutes in a PreCheck line, why pay...
I got CLEAR for free through an Amex Offer a few years ago and realized how useless it is for me. I tend to fly out of smaller airports a lot, my home airport doesn't have CLEAR, and even when I fly through a bigger airport, often only certain checkpoints have CLEAR and I wasn't about to try and hunt them down. I've never waited more than 5 minutes in a PreCheck line, why pay 10x the cost for something with way less utility? CLEAR was a dumb idea that really never should have existed in the first place.
I had clear pretty early on before all the credit card memberships were given out. As others have said Clear is an absolute joke these days.
I canceled back in 2021 because precheck was faster even back then. It's always funny seeing people opt for the longer Clear lines these days - I guess it's a status thing?
A second bankruptcy wouldn't surprise me.
"I canceled back in 2021 because precheck was faster even back then"
Where's your data supporting this? PreClear vs CLEAR time in line is so airport-dependent (and time of day dependent) that you probably shouldn't make broad generalizations like that.
I find it really depends upon what airport you're at. Clear can be a big time saver at some airports like MSP at the North checkpoint where it's pretty much everyone but Delta passengers. But at other airports it can actually be slower.
My problem is too many people (and families) have Pre-Check and too many have Clear. Again, depending upon the airport there are fewer people in general security lines than in Pre-Check. The...
I find it really depends upon what airport you're at. Clear can be a big time saver at some airports like MSP at the North checkpoint where it's pretty much everyone but Delta passengers. But at other airports it can actually be slower.
My problem is too many people (and families) have Pre-Check and too many have Clear. Again, depending upon the airport there are fewer people in general security lines than in Pre-Check. The TSA is leaving money on the table with their rates, and the credit card companies aren't helping either. Couple that with those airports (like IND) who use the relatively new but incredibly slow 3D scanners, and security clearance can be a glacially slow nightmare.
This is what I've always said and has always been my experience. It's gotten really bad at JFK (while it used to be a huge time saver), but it has always gotten me right through the crazy lines at DEN, for one example. It also saves me a ton of time at MSG and Yankee stadium.
The lines are definitely getting worse, which is to no surprise as it's membership has grown. With that...
This is what I've always said and has always been my experience. It's gotten really bad at JFK (while it used to be a huge time saver), but it has always gotten me right through the crazy lines at DEN, for one example. It also saves me a ton of time at MSG and Yankee stadium.
The lines are definitely getting worse, which is to no surprise as it's membership has grown. With that said, as TSA facial recognition grows, CLEAR will be redundant. The last two times I opted in for facial recognition, I was through way faster than CLEAR has ever been.
"I find it really depends upon what airport you're at."
Indeed. This should be the TL;DR of the entire comments section.
Clear is a joke. TSA pre and sometimes general security are much faster at RDU
And the Clear workers at RDU seem to hate their jobs and display bad attitudes. I usually skip them and roll quickly through Precheck. Imagine paying for that service.
Clear in Slc makes me laugh. 3-4 open pre check lanes, clear feeds into one of them. 10 people in the clear line, 2 people in each of the pre Check lanes. Yet people still get in the clear lane, I suspect because it makes them feel important.
If you care about your privacy and security, you shouldn't be using Clear in the first place. You're giving your biometric data to a private corporation just to get through the security line a little bit faster. Not worth it at all. What will happen when the database inevitably gets hacked? You can't change your biometrics! The entire thing should never have been allowed in the first place, and in an ideal world, they would...
If you care about your privacy and security, you shouldn't be using Clear in the first place. You're giving your biometric data to a private corporation just to get through the security line a little bit faster. Not worth it at all. What will happen when the database inevitably gets hacked? You can't change your biometrics! The entire thing should never have been allowed in the first place, and in an ideal world, they would be banned from airports just like some state legislators are trying to do.
Even faster these days is often the facial recognition line that is currently being trialed, available in some airports. You just take a picture and that's it. Shortest lines yet.
My wife let her TSA pre lapse, so she signed up for a year of Clear for free via AX offers. She used Clear and regular security. I used TSA pre. Beat her every time, in about 6 different airports, often by a wide margin.
Of course you did. Regular security eliminates any potential CLEAR advantage.
I was a CLEAR member when I was Diamond then paid for it last year when I dropped to Platinum. My membership is coming due next week and I have canceled it for the reasons you state. I even turned down a keep it for free for 2 months offer because I knew that I would not use it
Have never once been tempted to obtain a CLEAR membership (albeit never had any cards/status levels that offer it complimentary/discounted). TSA PreCheck is all I need. Can't remember it took me more than 10 minutes from entry to the queue to picking up my carryon on the other side.
I call BS or there's only a handful of airports that you fly out of. The vast majority of them if you're not flying at 6am or after 5pm it's longer than that.
I have Pre via global entry and also clear. I'll always just use the line that will get me through faster (even regular). If you fly often enough and at the right airports clear makes it worth it even if there's only...
I call BS or there's only a handful of airports that you fly out of. The vast majority of them if you're not flying at 6am or after 5pm it's longer than that.
I have Pre via global entry and also clear. I'll always just use the line that will get me through faster (even regular). If you fly often enough and at the right airports clear makes it worth it even if there's only a single time you really needed it (there's no way I'm getting to the airport 2-3 hours ahead of a domestic boarding time).
I don't know what awful airports and times you have to fly, but I'm more inclined to call BS on you I've had Pre Check since 2015 and waited more than 10 minutes exactly once since then (and it was still only 15 minutes and SeaTac was slammed with 40+ minutes waits for general TSA).
Sincerely though, I'm interested in what airports and times the Pre Check lines are over 10 minutes - I'll try and avoid them.