When I received the email reminding me that our CLEAR+ membership was about to renew, my first thought was, “Did they raise the price again?”
The email said I’d be charged $304 for another year: $179 for my membership and $125 for my wife, Sharon, as an additional family member. That seemed like much more than I remembered paying, so I went back and checked.
In 2022, I paid $169 for both of us.
That wasn’t $169 each. It was $169 total.
We like having CLEAR, and it has saved us from standing in a long airport security line. But when the cost for two people has increased from $169 to $304 in four years, you eventually have to ask whether the service is still worth the price.
CLEAR’s Price Keeps Creeping Higher
Our $169 price in 2022 came from a discounted $109 membership through Delta, plus $60 to add Sharon to my account. Since then, CLEAR has steadily increased both parts of the equation.
The standard price for a CLEAR+ membership is now $219 per year. Members of Delta SkyMiles, United MileagePlus and Atmos Rewards can pay less, depending on their status or whether they hold an eligible airline credit card.
Under the latest Delta pricing, general SkyMiles members pay $209. Silver, Gold and Platinum Medallion members, along with eligible Delta SkyMiles American Express cardholders, pay $179. Diamond Medallion members, who previously received complimentary CLEAR+, now pay $129.
Only invitation-only Delta 360 members continue to receive it for free.
United’s pricing follows essentially the same structure. General MileagePlus members pay $209; Premier Silver, Gold and Platinum members and eligible United cardholders pay $179; and Premier 1K members pay $129. Only Global Services members still receive complimentary membership.
The family-member price has also climbed. What cost us $60 in 2022 is now $125 per additional adult. Put everything together, and our price for two people has increased from $169 to $304—an increase of almost 80% in four years.
American Express has mostly shielded cardholders from those increases by repeatedly raising the CLEAR+ statement credits on eligible cards. The credit started at $179, then increased as CLEAR raised its standard membership price. It is now up to $219 per calendar year on eligible cards, including the American Express Platinum and American Express Classic Green.
That keeps an individual membership covered, but it also makes it easy to overlook how much CLEAR now costs.
Is CLEAR Actually Saving You Enough Time?
The answer depends heavily on where and when you travel.
If your home airport regularly has long security lines and CLEAR consistently moves you ahead, the membership may still provide real value. Saving 20 or 30 minutes several times a year can make a big difference, especially if you tend to arrive at the airport with little extra time.
But that hasn’t always been our experience.
Sometimes the CLEAR line is shorter. Other times, the regular TSA PreCheck line moves just as quickly—or even faster—than the CLEAR line. There’s not much benefit in waiting for a CLEAR kiosk and an employee to escort you to the checkpoint while passengers in the PreCheck line keep moving.
TSA has also been improving its own identity-verification systems. At airports where we’re eligible to use TSA PreCheck Touchless ID, that line may be shorter and easier than using CLEAR. As those systems expand, CLEAR has more competition than it did several years ago.
Availability also matters. CLEAR says it operates more than 150 lanes across its airport network, but that doesn’t mean you’ll find it at every airport—or even in every terminal at an airport where it operates.
When we recently flew home from Charlotte, CLEAR wasn’t an option because CLT doesn’t have it. Our memberships provided no value for that departure.
Before paying for CLEAR, it’s worth considering how you actually travel:
- Does your home airport have CLEAR in the terminal you normally use?
- Do the other airports you visit frequently offer it?
- Do you generally fly during busy periods when security lines are long?
- Is the CLEAR line at your airport reliably faster than TSA PreCheck?
- Do you have access to TSA PreCheck Touchless ID?
- How many times did CLEAR save you a meaningful amount of time during the past year?
Most importantly, would you pay the full price if a credit card weren’t reimbursing you?
Why We’re Keeping CLEAR—For Now
After seeing the $304 renewal price, I removed Sharon from my family plan. My membership will now renew for $179, which should be reimbursed by the CLEAR+ credit on my American Express Platinum Card.
I can let my membership renew using the Platinum Card, change the payment method on my CLEAR account to Sharon’s American Express Classic Green Card and then re-add her to my family plan for $125. Alternatively, she can always open her own account and charge it to the Green Card.
Either way, the separate CLEAR+ credits from our two American Express cards should cover the entire cost.
That’s why we’ll probably keep CLEAR. We like having it available, and we use it when available. There’s little reason to give up a service we find useful when our credit cards reimburse the cost.
But that doesn’t mean I think CLEAR is worth $304 per year for the two of us.
If the American Express credits disappeared and I had to pay the full amount myself, I’m not sure I’d renew. TSA PreCheck already covers the part of airport security that matters most to us, Touchless ID is becoming another useful option, and CLEAR isn’t available everywhere we travel.
CLEAR can still be valuable, but the price has reached the point where travelers shouldn’t automatically renew just because they’ve had it for years. Look at the airports you actually use, the times you normally travel and how often CLEAR genuinely saves you time.
If someone else is paying the bill, keeping it is easy. If the money is coming out of your own pocket, the answer may be very different.
Would you pay the current price for CLEAR if your credit card didn’t reimburse you?
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