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Sad news for those of you with additional family members on your CLEAR account: the cost for these people just went up.
With no announcement or forewarning, we just saw a price jump of more than 40% for each adult listed as a family member on your account. That's…steep.
CLEAR Plus is a private security program that can give you expedited access to dozens of airports, cruise ports, and sports stadiums around the U.S. Rather than using your photo identification, your identity is confirmed via your eyes (your irises, specifically) or fingerprints.
CLEAR offers promotions regularly to entice new members, such as Uber vouchers or bonus miles from affiliated airline programs. For an adult, the standard membership in CLEAR Plus is $189 annually.
Related: I Just Registered for CLEAR, Should You?
Adding a family member or friend to your account has cost $70 per adult until now. That price has jumped to $99 without warning, sadly. This price applies to adding up to three adults, which you can do here.
There are some silver linings to this bad news, for lack of a better term.
First, it's worth pointing out that children under 18 still can use CLEAR lanes with an enrolled adult at no cost. Second, the cost of adding a family member, while more costly now, is still lower than the price of that person getting a membership on their own account. The price for an individual account is $189 per adult.
However, it's worth pointing out that there are ways to get a discount on CLEAR, including options to get it for free. These depend on having airline elite status or an airline credit card from participating programs. Several American Express credit cards also will reimburse your CLEAR membership cost each year, though the reimbursement won't be enough to cover your membership and the cost of an added family member.
While it's unfortunate that the cost of adding adult family members to your account has gone up, those who have access to free memberships likely won't care. This includes families where everyone has their own premium credit card or elite status.
Those who relied on credits to cover most of the cost while paying the difference for adding a spouse… You're probably not too pleased with this price increase.
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