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As I wrote about earlier this week, starting today, the annual cost of a CLEAR® Plus membership rose from $209 to $219. The rate increased $10 last July 1st and that was the third price hike in the program’s 15-year history. Airport security technology continues to evolve and I question whether the premium service is still worth the price (even though $10 is not a huge amount of money).
When CLEAR® Plus first launched, it promised a faster, frictionless airport experience by letting travelers skip ID checks using biometric verification. For years, that convenience made it a popular add-on for frequent flyers like me. But lately, I use it less often. The rollout of TSA’s touchless ID technology (it verifies identities via facial recognition) called TSA PreCheck Touchless ID is now the best way to go. In 2024, I was calling CLEAR® Plus useless (I’ve lightened up a bit since then, but wouldn’t pay for it if I didn’t have credit cards that reimbursed the fee).
United stopped comping the service for its top-tier elites last year and Delta just copied this move. If I had to shell out $209+, I would no longer participate. The staff at most airports is terrible and spends time chatting and not working. I am also often forced to provide ID as the system seems to be forever updating or singling me out as a random check. This never happens with TSA PreCheck Touchless ID, which is currently available at 65 airports.
American Express has already increased the amount that it will reimburse cardmembers each year to $219. These include the The Platinum Card® from American Express (including the Personal, Business, and Schwab/Morgan Stanley versions), The American Express Green Card®, and the Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card.
Anthony’s Take: While CLEAR® Plus can still offer a time-saving edge in certain airports and during peak travel times, the rising cost is getting harder to justify with increasingly efficient TSA lanes and technology.
(Image Credits: CLEAR.)
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Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links above This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
