Use the Mobile Passport App to Breeze Through Customs Without Global Entry

[MULTIZ321]

Use the Mobile Passport App to Breeze Through Customs Without Global Entry
By Virginia K. Smith/ Hack the World/ LifeHacker/ lifehacker.com

"Waiting in line for U.S. customs when you return stateside from an international flight can be excruciating. There’s a good reason people shell out for programs like TSA Precheck and Global Entry in an effort to speed up the process.

But if you’re planning to travel internationally and don’t have Global Entry, there’s another, totally free tool you can use to whisk yourself to the front of the line and out of the airport that much sooner—the Mobile Passport app.

On the way back from a recent trip Lifehacker trip to Costa Rica, our Senior Video Producer Joel blew everyone’s mind by alerting us to the existence of this app, which allows you to fill out customs information—the kind you normally wait in line at the airport to input on a touch screen machine—ahead of time, and thus head through customs in a separate, usually-much-shorter line. (We’ve covered Mobile Passport on Lifehacker in the past, but what can I say—we don’t always take our own advice the first time around.)....."

Screenshot: Mobile Passport (iTunes app store)


Richard

 

[Helaine]

I've used it a few times. Very quick and painless.

 

[Sandy VDH]

Note, if you are Global Entry do not use this app. It will then invalidate your GE for that arrival. Some people were originally coaching that doing both and seeing which line is shorter. But if you have the app and GE only use this if you visually see the GE line is long, which it usually is not.

 

[tiel]

We were all set up to use the App at the end of a cruise a few years ago, but after we got off the ship and were navigating the Mobile app line, we were told the system was down and we couldn’t use it. They did let us go to the front of the regular line, though, so we still got through the return process quickly.