Nexus Round 2: Conditional Approval
Back on November 2nd I filled out the online application for Nexus. Today I finally got notification that I am conditionally approved. The next step is to schedule an interview. Since I primarily intend to use Nexus for air travel I need to do my interview at one of the facilities that can scan my irises.
I haven’t looked at the schedule yet, but I will update this when I know approximately how long the waits are for the interview.
I was starting to get worried that my initial approval was taking so long, but Flyertalk did mention about 6 weeks is typical right now.
There is a very informative thread in FT’s Air Canada forum about Nexus.
I have it, and live in Toronto. The YYZ office is tough to get into, but there are openings at short notice (as in same-day on occasion, so keep checking) but the land crossings near me are reliably easy.
As a side note, if you do your interview at a location that can’t do the iris scan, you can pop into a location that does later on and get it done without an appointment…
Is that the same as the Trusted Traveler Program and Global Entry?
Nexus is joint with the US and Canada. It also grants me access to Global Entry.
But does Global Entry holders get automatic access to Nexus?
This link says you can use the Nexus or SENTRI (Mexican border) lanes when driving back to the US if you get one of the RFID cards, but you will not be able to use Nexus kiosks at airports. My understanding is that GE puts a sticker in your passport and handles it all through finger prints while Nexus uses iris scanners in the airports.
Nexus is also cheaper ($50/5 years) than GE, but it depends on your travel patterns. Most of my international travel is to Canada so Nexus at YYZ will make a huge difference going back to the US. I typically wait 20+ minutes the times I’ve been there. US->Canada is usually not an issue and I’ve never had more than 3 people in front of me, but got sent to secondary a few times before my name changed. Now it doesn’t happen. Nexus doesn’t prevent being sent to secondary though.