Government fun and games

No, this post is not about any government conspiracies. Although that might make for an interesting post. This is about the rather mundane task of applying for the Global Entry Trusted Traveler Program. Except it was not so mundane.

A year ago, Mr. Ken and I decided to apply for the Global Entry Trusted Traveler Program. With this program, you can skip customs and get right back into the U.S. So we merrily went onto the Global Traveler website to start the process. Well, after giving them our life history, including giving them our first born, we were given “conditional approval.” The next step was to have an in-person interview at a Global Enrollment Center, most of which are located in airports. But, here is where it gets complicated. There were NO available interviews at Logan Airport. The clock starts ticking because at this time, we only had a year to schedule the interview before our application would be invalid.

After some frantic searching, I found two available interview spots in Rhode Island. The earliest we could get interviews was at the end of August.

In March COVID hit and everything closed down (including the government). We didn’t worry too much, thinking by August all will be well. Come July, we get notice that our interviews have been cancelled because all the centers are shutting down. There is no word when they will re-open.

In October, I tried again but Rhode Island and Boston were still closed. I was able to secure a spot in Connecticut for February.

Stay tuned next week for what happens next.

Fun and games photo is courtesy of Elliot Brown, under Creative Commons Licensing 2.0.