Travel hacking 101; Global entry and how you can get it for free
You may be reading the title of this article as say what? Yes, believe it or not the title of this article is true. You can receive global entry for free and here’s how I did it.
One thing to keep in mind is this travel secret and hack isn‘t for everyone as credit cards are in involved and some calculated risk.
An important factor is if you understand and manage your finances then this can and will work for you, so proceed with caution.
The first thing you need to ask yourself is if do you have good credit, manage money properly, and do you pay your bills on time?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, then keep reading, or keep reading regardless and you can learn something new today.
This brings me to the point about, global entry, as anyone that knows, traveling out of the country these days can be a daunting and exhausting task. Many more people are avoiding international travel due to constantly changing country requirements.
To make things a bit more enjoyable getting global entry to return to the United States makes life a bit easier and will save you time.
Last week (February 2022) I had the opportunity to get my global entry completed when I returned from a trip to Nassau, Bahamas. Nassau‘s airport known as Lynden Pindling International Airport is one of many ports of entry into the United States that will allow you as an American citizen to gain access to a global entry interview. The entry ports are limited and be sure to check the U.S. Customs and border patrol website for which locations allow global entry interviews.
According to the website for U.S. Customs and border patrol, Global entry is, “a risk-based approach to facilitate the entry of pre-approved travelers and note everyone will quality for global entry, for various reasons that you can read on the U.S Customs website.
Global entry in most all airports, that I have seen, will speed up the process of entering back into the USA and cut down on any lines you will have as you will have completed a pre-approval via application as well as a live in person interview at the port of entry, or at a local office.
So, here’s how it went. I first applied for the business Southwest credit card for my travel business, Wonderlust Adventure LLC.
From there I received my card and went onto the U.S Customs website and paid the $100 cost to receive global entry. I received an email within 24 hours that I was approved for an interview with U.S. customs. Another perk of this Southwest card is that I also just received 80,000 points (reward points are subject to change at the discretion of the credit card company at any time), to be used on all southwest flights to travel, so that could be about 5-10 flights, pending how you use your points.
Now, this may not be the case for everyone, as each individual may have a different experience, but in my case the approval came immediately to my email. The email received was quick and easy, possibly because I already had TSA approved pre-check from the last five years.
Once you have paid your $100 on your Southwest credit card you will then see a reimbursement in your chase mobile app (be sure to download this app when applying for any chase credit cards- a good one to start with if you are learning traveling hacking ), as Southwest business cards (as of writing this article) are a Chase bank credit card.
You will now see a negative $100 credit within your chase mobile app which is your reimbursemeant since the credit card company was alerted you applied for global entry.
Once I received my email to set up a global entry interview I knew I was golden.
I was leaving to the Bahamas and happened to receive an email a few days prior letting me know that there are now, numerous airports being used for global entry interviews.
Upon coming into the Nassau, Bahamas airport for my return to the USA I was able to meet with a customs officer. He looked over my profile and took my finger prints to verify I fit the profile of someone who is approved for global entry status.
The interview took less than 20 minutes and I sat and waited off to the side (nobody was there waiting) to ensure my fingerprints went through clearly and were approved.
Again my experience may not be like everyone’s but that is one of many ways you can get global entry for free.
Keep in mind it is always recommended when opening any credit cards , that you check the 5/24 rule which is a chase rule, that I am happy to teach you more about. Be sure to subscribe to my future blogs and newsletters for more travel hacks.
Happy travel hacking and hope your global entry interview and experience was as easy and smooth as mine. Thankful for the lovely and friendly officer in the Bahamas to make my experience a delight.
All of the advice or articles posted are merely opinions personal experience from learning over the last year and half of how to travel hack.
Comments are closed