swilt170571

Hi All,

LAter this year I will be travelling with my Children (were all UK residents) with my American Wife back into USA for a vacation.

Our flight will be Heathrow > San Francsico and a quick flight down to San Luis Obispo.

Our Problem is we only have a 90 minute layover. I believe this is to short based on my many previous flights into SFO although one break we may have is that the LHR > SFO is normally a little early so maybe more time. Ive questioned this with United Airlines who sold us both flights on one ticket and they assure me no issue!.

My query is this

1) I have only ever gone through customs by myself before not with my American Wife so have gone in the visitors line that can be slow, although my last visit they do now have the electronic machines which seem to speed up the process. But as I am with my American Wife can we now go via the American Citizen line do you know? similar to what she can do when she flies in to UK with me.

2) Also anyone any experience of putting on a smile putting the kids in front of them and asking TSA if they can get us through fast as we have a very short layover time!!!!

Thanks in advance

tonrob

That's tight. You might want to see if you can rearrange that. I'm a USC with Global Entry and I wouldn't attempt it out of choice even if traveling alone. Lots to go wrong there.

swilt170571

IVe tried I rang United Airlines up who I have booked the ticket through one one ticket, and they ensure me no issue!!!! I argued I didnt believe that as I have been in SFO many many times and got stuck.

They will change each flight for me (4) for £500 :-(.

Worse case is we miss it United have to get us on next available which there is later that evening if there are seats. But the wait time I could hire a car in that time and drive its 3 - 4 hour drive... wonder if United would stump up for hire car!

Given2Fly

Hi, I've never been through SFO, but at both ORD and EWR United reps meet passengers with tight connections at the aircraft and help expedite the process. The 3 or 4 times they've assisted me they've given me reprints of my boarding card, in bright orange envelopes - the customer service people monitoring the queues at the passport desk see that and move you straight to the front of the line. Same thing happens at the security checkpoint.

Noorah101

Your USC wife can go through tie visitor line, but you can't go through her USC line.

Rene

livinginnyc

^^ This. It really depends on what time you land though - on how pain immigration will be. I've never gone through SFO, but I have done Heathrow -> Vegas -> Salt Lake city.

I had a 2 hour layover at Vegas, and landed in the afternoon. To say I made my connection by the skin of my teeth is an understatement. It took *forever* to clear immigration (as a UK citizen without Global Entry/Green Card at the time). After switching terminals, re-checking in and going through TSA, I literally sprinted through the middle of the terminal to make the gate, as it was past final call with my name, they had to radio down to the plane to re-open the door as it was that close to taxiing out onto the tarmac.

That was with United, and they were pretty unsympathetic at Vegas. They didn't expedite or assist past the 'you sure you can sprint to the aircraft?'... but that might have been that I flew in on Virgin and connected with United.

kevntrace

I agree it is tight, but United has cleared this as okay. In which case if things go tits up, United is obligated to get you on a flight to your destination. It will be a hassle though.

Ultimately I think I would have just rented a car out of SFO and not worried about the second flight.

That is what I do in the opposite direction when I land at Heathrow and have a 3 - 4 hour drive to the southwest.

kimilseung

I would not pay money for a flight that they will just put me on if I dont make it in time anyway. I'd have a copy of them saying the timing will not be an issue, just in case.

Pulaski

That seems to depend on the airport and the rules in effect on the day as it seems to vary from airport to airport.

A side question, are "your" children also the children of your wife? .... If so, has she passed US citizenship to them? (She doesn't get any choice in the matter, she either has, or has not.) If she has then your/her children are required to enter the US using US passports.

sherbert

It's tight but doable and since your flights are all booked on one ticket if you miss your flight then the airline will sort you out. SFO isn't a hub like JFK or Atlanta so you've not actually got that many international flights coming in at the same time which means immigration isn't going to take hours. You will most likely have to to change terminals though.

DexterBerkeley

It's down to luck how busy immigration will be at SFO. Sometimes there is only 1 flight which has arrived, but there could be two who came in right before you making immigration busy.

On the plus side, security at T3, where most United domestic flights depart, is usually pretty quick so getting back airside hopefully won't take too much time.

mrken30

United have been quite good to me in the past regarding connections. They even held a international flight for me and about 30 other passengers when our connecting flight was late. The internal flight connected to the gate opposite the international flight. United is the only airline that has done this in my experience.

Pulaski

The more people that it impacts, the greater the chance of them holding a flight - a few people might be accommodated on a later flight, but having an extra 30 people to get to their destination when they were delayed through no fault of their own, would cause an operational headache and quite possibly extra expense over just holding a flight.

Also if the connecting flight was the last flight of the day to that destination, would be another significant consideration.

markonline1

What's the deal with your luggage. Do you have to pick it up at SFO and recheck it in? I'm not sure as there will obviously be no customs nor border patrol at SLO. If your bags are checked straight through, you maybe ok, but those immigration lines can be worse than the security lines sometimes. The good news is, if you miss your connection, United will stick you on the next available flight free of charge. The bad news is SLO will probably only have one or two flights a day to SFO so you may have a pretty horrendous layover in the airport. I'm flying to OKC a lot at the moment. I missed my last connection from SFO to Monterey by 5 minutes. There was a 12 hour wait for the next flight. I ended up taking a 3 hour bus ride home!
Oh and international is one thing, they can make up the time and it won't have such a knock on if it arrives a little late. The flight from SFO to SLO will be one of their regional hopper flights. They won't hold it.

Pulaski

I thought you always had to reclaim your luggage on arrival (first airport you land at) in the US and clear customs, because internal flights are exactly that, internal.