With the long lines at airports, it pays to know every way possible to shorten your wait to get through security. We have Clear for when we fly out of Orlando or at an airport with the service at the gates we’re flying from. While it’s a lifesaver for some frequent travelers, the service that is most likely to save you time at the checkpoint is TSA Precheck.
The preclearance service by TSA allows you to skip the long X-ray line at the airport and go through a less invasive screening process. Not having to take off your shoes and belt and leaving electronics in your bag saves a great deal of time getting ready for and after the checkpoint.
You can enroll for TSA Precheck or get access to the program by enrolling in the more thorough Global Entry, NEXUS or SENTRI programs offered through US Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
TSA Members are issued a Known Traveler Number or KTN. Members of the CBP programs are given a PASSID, which is used instead of a Known Traveler Number. You need to provide one of these numbers to an airline in advance to access the TSA Precheck lanes. That is because the number is embedded into the barcode of your boarding pass, letting the agent know you’re a member of an eligible program.
For most US airlines, you can add your KTN or PASSID number to your frequent flyer account. This will ensure that any flight where you provide your frequent flyer number will automatically include your information. But what if you’re flying on a non-US carrier?
There are over 80 airlines that participate in TSA Precheck for flights leaving US airports. In 2018, Icelandair started participating in the program. When booking our flights to Iceland, I was a bit surprised that I wasn’t asked for our KTN.
I looked to the online chat function to see if I could get help there. Their chatbot provided me with the following response.
TSA Precheck is now available with Icelandair. Please contact our Service Center to be able to add your KTN or TSA number to your booking
The contact page only provided phone numbers to call centers around the world. Knowing how horrible wait times are for phone centers at the moment, I was dreading the process. I did some more digging online and found a thread on Reddit that said the Icelandair Twitter account could add a KTN to a reservation.
While their response was not prompt, I eventually received a reply to my request.
I provided the information requested and after another lengthy wait, I received a reply that our KTNs were added to the reservation.
So this proves that, once again, travel company Twitter accounts can often be your best bet when trying to get things done. Because of the lag time in responses, I wouldn’t count on them to help in the case of IRROPS. However, to solve a simple problem like adding KTN to a reservation, writing a quick DM on Twitter was much easier than sitting on hold to speak to an agent on the phone.
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2 comments
Thanks! Very helpful for a family member traveling soon to Iceland.
That’s a good tip and still worked for me as of May 2022. I sent a single private Twitter message that directly provided my name, booking numner and KTN. Waited overnight and got confirmation it was done by morning the next day. So I advise providing all info in the first message to speed things up.