In travel news for March 1, 2022 we have exiting news from the Transportation Security Administration, Jamaica, and American Airlines.
TSA PreCheck, the program that allows travelers to be pre-verified to avoid many of the hassles of Airport Security has recently opened it first international location. Travelers that have TSA PreCheck and are flying out of Nassau in the Bahamas can use the designated security line to clear security quicker and easier. Nassau is one of 16 international locations that runs the U.S. Customs and Boarder Protection Pre-Clearance program.
For those unfamiliar, the Customs and Boarder Protections Pre-Clearance program is available at 16 locations, in 6 countries outside of the U.S. This program clears passengers before boarding their flights so as to avoid the need when the land. The countries that have a pre-clearance program in place are Ireland, Aruba, The Bahamas, Bermuda, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, and Canada.
We previously talked about Jamaica’s relaxing of entry requirements. Travelers that visit Jamaica starting today will no longer need to apply for Travel Authorization. Jamaica has also removed it’s travel related quarantine procedures. This brings the Caribbean island inline with many other foreign destinations in only requiring a negative COVID test taken within 72 hours of their departing flight.
And in other exciting news, today American Airlines starts their newly revamped loyalty program. The biggest change to the program is a simplification in how the elite-tier qualifications are tracked. The metric used going forward will be loyalty points. One mile earned through the program equals one loyalty point. Miles can be earned by flying on American Airlines, one of it’s partners, or using the American Airlines AAdvantage credit card. The new requirements for each tier are 30,000 for gold, 75,000 for platinum, 125,000 for platinum pro, and 200,000 for executive platinum.