Whether you’re a fan of the Clear pass for jumping to the head of the TSA line, or you hate it, you might want to know that the company is raising its price by $28. Only, the company steadfastly refuses to call it a price increase.
Originally, the price was $99 when Clear launched, and sometime thereafter it was raised to $128 — $100 for the Clear pass from Verified Identity Pass, Inc. plus, $28 for the TSA identity verification and screening fee.
Since that time, TSA has eliminated its charge and is allowing unlimited expansion of the program, which had been, until now, limited to 20 airports. (Right now, between them, Clear and Flo Corp. are operating in 19 locations.) Just a few weeks ago, Cindy Rosenthal, Clear’s spokeswoman, told me the only reason Clear increased its price from $100 to $128 was to cover the government-mandated TSA identity verification and screening fee.
Effectively, once the TSA fee was eliminated and the Clear fee stayed the same, that translated into a fee increase. OK, the overall charge is remaining $128, but the initial reason for the $28 add-on has been discontinued. Twenty-eight percent is a whopping increase.
“We’re keeping the fee the same but we’re replacing the background check (by the TSA) with another check by a private agency,” Rosenthal noted. “I wouldn’t say it’s a price increase.”
Maybe she wouldn’t, but I would.
Why is this important? In an airline world of fees and surcharges being added it seems everyday, keeping them effective even after the original rationale for the surcharge is gone, is an increase in price. Kind of like “fuel surcharges” that never seem to go away when fuel prices go down.
I don’t begrudge the airlines fare increases — they need ‘em if they are to stay in business — but disguising a permanent fare increase as a fuel surcharge is disingenuous. Disguising a price increase as a “replacing-the-background-check fee” is equally disingenuous.
Rosenthal said the company is “not trying to obfuscate anything about this fee … we’re assuming the risk” that the (optional) background check the company will obtain from a private company will cost more than $28. (Since employer background checks generally cost less than $28, you can be sure that any identity check Clear undertakes is likely to cost less than $28, as well.)
Upshot: The price goes up by 28 percent; Clear denies it’s an increase; and the TSA is only requiring the two companies that currently provide Registered Traveler services, Clear and Flo Corp., to ensure interoperability for one more year. So Clear founder Steven Brill is already hinting that his company may not want to allow interoperability after the TSA mandate expires. Sounds like “higher price and we’ll see if we try to stick it to our competitors next year” to me.
