Frequent Miler on the Air - Speed up US entry with Mobile Passport Control | Coffee Break Ep96 | 3-10-26

Episode Date: March 10, 2026

For years, Nick has always used the free Mobile Passport Control app for speedy re-entry into the country instead of Global Entry. In today's episode, we'll talk about this free alternative to Global Entry.(00:18) - Mobile passport control is super easy and free(05:37) - Where can it be used(06:30) - Global Entry has advantages, thoughVisit https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe to get updated on in-depth points and miles content like this, and don’t forget to like and follow us on social media.Music Credit – Beach Walk by Unicorn HeadsMentioned in this episode:Visit FrequentMiler.com Did you know that Frequent Miller is also a website? At frequentMiller.com, you'll find all the latest deals, news about points, miles, and rewarding credit cards, the single best, Best Credit Cards page on the web, guides to all popular rewards programs, and many other terrific resources. If you'd like to get our posts sent to your email, go to frequentMiller.com/subscribe and sign up for free. https://frequentmiler.com/subscribe/Check out all of our other travel podcasts from around the worldThis podcast is part of Voyascape, a podcast network that brings together the world's best travel podcasts. You can find all of our podcasts from around the world at Voyascape.com. If you are interested in advertising or sponsored content on any of our shows you can find out more at the link below.Voyascape Podcast Network

This is a Voyescape podcast. You can find all of our travel podcasts from around the world at voyescape.com. Welcome to Freakimilers Coffee Break, where we focus on a single topic related to miles and points. And each coffee break is limited to 20 minutes or less, pour your money back. On today's coffee break, speed up U.S. entry with mobile passport control. I have for years had global entry, and I've never had ever had ever. any interest in using the mobile passport control app to enter this country. But I've known Nick has been using it for years.

He hasn't signed up for global entry yet, has been successfully using mobile passport control. And, you know, it's one of those things that because I had global entry, I just never really looked at it. I had the opportunity to look at it this past weekend to try it out. And it was actually pretty good. So we're going to talk about the benefits, the pros and kinds of using mobile passport control. Yeah. So first of all, it can be a great alternative to global entry because it's free.

It doesn't cost anything. And so if you don't have a credit card that would reimburse the cost of global entry, this is a great alternative. It doesn't cost you anything. There's no interview required. That's been the main barrier for me in getting global entry. I don't live near an airport where you can do an interview. An interview on arrival sounds nice.

But when you're traveling with two young kids after a long flight, I just don't want to bog down the reentry process with it. So I haven't bothered with global entry because mobile passport control is free, doesn't require an interview. It's great when you're traveling with a family or group where not everyone has global entry. We're often traveling with other family members too that definitely aren't going to get global entry and we can all use the same mobile passport lane at the airport. So that's been excellent for us too.

And unlike global entry, mobile passport control is up and running right now, right, Craig? Yeah. So as we're recording this, the government had shut down global entry a few weeks ago. And I was leaving for Australia two weeks ago as this show comes out. And global entry had just recently been shut down, but pre-check had been reopened right away. And so I figured I've got almost two weeks by the time I come back. back, global entry will be back up and running. That wasn't the case.

But my wife and I on our outbound journey, we talked about, well, what will we do? And if global entry isn't up and running. And so I told her about, I sort of described it as Nick's trick, even though it's not like a secret or anything that the government has this. But a lot of people don't know about mobile passport control. So I told her about it. All we'd have to do is download this app, put in some information. And it's almost as fast as global entry to get in.

And so we both downloaded the app. And then I proceeded to forget all about it. But luckily, on our return trip, my wife remembered and thought to look up whether global entry had resumed yet, and she found it had not. So we scanned our passports and then found that, oh, we don't even both need the app. As long as we're traveling together, just one person can have the app, add all the passengers. That's super convenient. And it can be done in like the whole process from nothing to being ready to enter can be done in like two, three minutes.

I mean, it's super fast. I even remember when we were traveling with Kerry, who didn't have global entry or mobile passport control yet. At your direction, Nick, she had downloaded it and used it as we were entering the country and got to use the fast lane. So that worked well for her.

Our situation is so we landed in San Francisco coming back from Australia and we filled out the information. We go into the airport and they're still directing global entry people to the

global entry area. But the machines aren't running. So they have all the people lined up. It's the most ridiculous thing. This thing that supposedly is to reduce the work for the security people is actually adding a lot of work because they're not letting the automated systems do their jobs. Anyway, so there was a big, big line for people waiting to show their passports at global entry, whereas mobile passport control had its own line,

and there were four or five people lined up when we came up. We were through in about two minutes. It was great. Yeah, that's generally been my experience with it. It's a two or three minute wait, if that. Sometimes there's nobody in front of me in line. I can't believe nobody, I say nobody, but it's not quite nobody. But I can't believe most people aren't familiar with this

because there's almost never any measurable line for mobile passport control, despite it being super easy. Like you said, you feel like you said, You fill out essentially the customs declaration form on your phone. And you have to take a selfie at the end of the process. And so that's a little annoying. But it saves all the traveler information. So like my wife and kids and other family members that travel with us are all saved in my app.

So I can just check, check, check, check, check, who's traveling. And then we all need to take a quick selfie when we land. And I can submit the form and that's that. So I do find it fast for that. It can be used at 37 different U.S. international airports. So it's not available necessarily. everywhere, but 37 covers quite a few of the entry points into the United States. Most airports, yeah. Yeah. Fourteen different preclearance locations. So that'll be places I think that are

abroad, right? Like, I don't know the specific ones, but I know Dublin and Toronto and exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Four different seaports. I have not yet run into a seaport where that was something that was required, but apparently there are four where it exists. And six land border points of entry. So there's four in Washington plus Niagara Falls Rainbow Bridge. That's in New York and Eagle Pass Bridge in Texas. So there's a few other places where you can use mobile passport control as well. And we'll be right back with more comparing mobile passport control to global entry after this.

We hope you're enjoying the Frequent Miler on the air podcast. Did you know that Frequent Miler is also a website? At Frequentmiler.com, you'll find all the latest deals, news about, points, miles, and rewarding credit cards, the single best best credit cards page on the web guides to all popular rewards programs and many other terrific resources. If you'd like to get our posts sent to your email, go to frequentmiler.com forward slash subscribe and sign up for free. And we're back. All right, we talked about the advantages of mobile passport control over global entry, but global entry has some advantages. So let's not

ignore that and talk about the advantages of global entry, especially when it's up and running, which hopefully it will be soon. First of all, when you sign up for global entry, you also get TSA pre-check. So, you know, for domestic flights, it obviously can save a lot of time going in the pre-check lanes, and you don't necessarily have to do things like take out laptops or whatever. I know a lot of that stuff is going away from regular, you know, TSA lanes as well, but still, I think there are some advantages on the, on the TSA pre-check lanes. And you don't have to, you often don't have to do that full body scanner. You just have an X-ray scanner.

So it's quicker to get through yourself. It's a bit faster. I mean, at least in my experience, a couple times Nick and I both like entered the customs area at the same time. And, you know, I got through, I don't know, a little bit faster, a little bit faster. A little bit. Not enough to make a big deal, but, but a little bit. To beat the checked bags if we had checked something, probably.

That's definitely the case, right? Sometimes, so when you're using mobile passport control, you do have to go up to a security officer and show your passport with, with global entry. Sometimes you just like, look at the machine. it identifies you and and they just like wave you right through you don't have to do that one step that that step doesn't take long so it's not a big deal whether or not that happens but that's a minor benefit um and there's no selfie required um other than the fact that when you look at the machine it's sort of taking a picture of you uh for you know for what it needs so but you don't have to do it

yourself on your phone but again well there's some small benefit to that because sometimes when we've landed my kids are either asleep or super sleepy and getting them to like open their eyes and look at the phone and get a selfie that's an actual picture of their face. It is a little bit of a pain now and then. So there is some advantage, I suppose, to know a selfie being required for global entry. But if you want to do global entry with your kids, they have to get global entry as well. So you have to have everybody show up for the interview and get fingerprinted and all that kind of stuff. So with mobile password control, you don't need all of that. So yeah, so I'm still happy I have global entry, but I'm,

I'm even happier that I can use both so that when global entry isn't a good option, mobile passport control is a really good alternative. Don't forget, if you've enjoyed this and you'd like to get on our email list, you want to go to frequentmiler.com slash subscribe to join our email list, follow us on all the various social media, and check out our frequent mile around the air episodes dropping every Friday. If you love travel, but don't always have time to plan, we've got a podcast for you. It's called Travel in 10, and in every episode, in about 10 minutes, we give you a smart, practical overview of destinations all around the world. We cover what to see, where to stay, where to eat, and what actually matters when you're planning out a truck. It's designed for real life. Listen on the way to the airport, in the car, or while you're thinking about your next getaway. So if you want expert advice, zero fluff, and travel inspiration that you can actually use, search for Travelin10 wherever you listen to podcasts, or you can also find us at voeuscape.com.

Hi, I'm Mike Siegel, host to the Travel Tales podcast, and I'm a stand-up comedian who's been touring the world for years, and when I'm not traveling for work, I'm traveling for fun. And when I'm not traveling at all, I'm talking with friends, influencers, expats, and other people from all walks of life about the thing I'm most passionate about travel. So if you want to hear a fun conversation about travel and maybe even learn a few things along the way, check out the Travel Tales Podcast with Mike Siegel, wherever you get your podcasts.