All of the Michael W Travels family have had Global Entry for some years now.
When Theo was born, Kim and I procrastinated on getting his Global Entry membership taken care of. This was never really an issue. When arriving back in the US, all we usually needed to do was fill out a customs form for him to include with our slips from the GE machine.
With Kim’s Amex Platinum fee coming up, it was time to get Theo his Global Entry membership.
I signed him up online and charged the $100 fee to Kim’s Platinum card. Within a week or so the fee was refunded. (For those of you who didn’t know, this is one of the perks of the Amex Platinum card…)
We then picked a Sunday morning for Theo’s GE interview.
When Kim and Lucas had their interviews back in 2015, the whole process was impressively fast. We made the appointment at JFK. We were done in less than 30 minutes!
I wondered how Theo’s appointment would go.
Theo’s appointment was for 10:15am. We arrived at JFK Terminal 4 short term parking at 10:03. Kim went ahead with Theo while Lucas and I parked the car.
There were a bunch of people ahead of us and the waiting room was pretty full. Some people had arrived very early for their appointments.
I wondered, if they arrived at the enrollment center before us but their appointment was for a later time than ours, would we get to go ahead of them?
Kim waited around with Theo while Lucas and I wandered around the arrivals area which isn’t exactly exciting…
As we walked back to check on Kim and Theo, they were already going in for the interview! I was going to join them but the officer (kind of rude) said how only one parent was needed.
I walked away and saw that those who arrived before us with later appointments had to wait for those with earlier appointments.
(Tip: It doesn’t pay to rush to get to the enrollment center ahead of your appointment. Being early, might not get you an earlier appointment!)
Within two minutes, Theo was done. The officer took a picture of Theo and said to Kim, “he hasn’t left the country before”. As Kim started to mention places Theo’s been, the officer then started reading off Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Tonga etc…
That was it for the interview!
Short term parking at JFK charges in 30 minute increments. We easily exited the lot, paying the cheapest amount.
In the end, Theo got Global Entry for $5 (parking fee) and a 20 minutes total time at the enrollment center.
We did Teddy’s when he was 4 months old. We had to take a quick trip from Oakland to Seattle since SFO had no slots until after our trip to Switzerland and France. Not only did Teddy get his interview but he got to meet his Great Uncle, and we all got practice on a plane.
And we were so glad to have Global Entry when we got home off the plane from Paris as Teddy hadn’t been able to sleep any longer than 30 minutes at a time and we were all very tired.