Airport Parking and My Most Recent Trip
I've often parked in public (vs. private) airport lots, except at BWI. I don't recall why I turned to private lots there; maybe the long-term public lots were full near Christmas nearly 20 years ago. (I wasn't living locally then, but the company let me fly home for Christmas vs. Chicago, and I was using a company leased car vs. a rental.) I've not always gone out of BWI since my original 2004 relocation; depending on flight and/or work schedules, I've occasionally flown out of Dulles and Reagan.Preflight Airport Parking (off-site) offered a number of amenities, like bottled water, a daily newspaper, prompt shuttle service, but I especially liked being able to reserve a guaranteed spot during the busy holiday season--or at least know I had to look elsewhere for a spot vs. risk missing my outgoing flight.
Last year, my first time to go to Preflight after leaving MD in 2013 went as usual. And so after getting my leave approved and getting my round trip to Texas secured, I went to Preflight to get my reservation done--and it was like the business had disappeared. There is a related Preflight hub of airports serviced, but no link to BWI. An initial Google search turned up nothing. Had they gone bankrupt? Had they rebranded? I asked a colleague, long-term Baltimore resident, at work; he didn't have a clue, had always used the public lots. I eventually settled on another private lot using a finder service; nearly all boosted their rates for the holiday season. I noted with interest a number of local hotels rented spots bur had obscene tax/other surcharges. The lot I chose was unusual in that it required prepayment (and your car keys, as I later discovered. I was particularly worried because I didn't realize my return flight was booked in at 1 AM. I still have nightmares about flying into Charleston about 2 AM 3 years ago; there were no Uber cars available, and I had to wait over an hour for a taxi to drive me home about 15 minutes away. My anxiety only grew as after the fact I came across hostile customer reviews complaining about long delays, even failures in return shuttle processes, some claiming they had to hire a taxi to take them to the lot.
I was still obsessing over what happened to Preflight; I eventually noticed that Google was promoting ads for a company called BullsEye Parking. I had ignored the ads; after all, I had already prepaid my parking elsewhere. But I was curious why Google was promoting that business vs. others in the search results. As soon as I drilled into the link, I soon read a familiar set of amenities. No reference to being the former Preflight, but I looked at the street address and Google still had a cached copy of old Preflight with its street address, a match. Finally, one of Google's links had a blurb like "BullsEye Parking, formerly known as Preflight,..." Mystery solved.
I'm not sure what happened; I was on their mailing list. I vaguely recall getting a message about their frequent parking program, but my current job doesn't require flying to other facilities. If they did promote the business name change, it wasn't recent and may have been buried among thousands of other emails.
As for the trip to and from airport parking, my Garmin was perfect, except when it asked me if I was okay for toll roads, I didn't realize it was assuming no-cash EZPASS roads. I don't travel the toll roads frequently enough to justify getting a replacement transponder (I think I have one in a moving box somewhere from my Chicago days). Maryland will go after you for unpaid tolls on no-cash tollways; there are some hoops to jump through to find and pay your toll (I think I may have done it before), but in this case I avoided the "express" tollways (I still had to do the tunnel toll but there are cash booths). The Garmin seems to hate cash booths; it keeps telling me to go on EZPASS lanes. I may give in and get a new transponder; the cash booths are sparse and inconvenient (usually at the far right)
I didn't experience any unusual issues other than a delay in getting my car reclaimed. (They had mistakenly classified my car as a Chevy, and the shuttle driver had taken but did not return my parking receipt linked to my parking permit--I had not memorized my permit number (they wanted me to place the permit in view of my dashboard to avoid towing). She was finally convinced when my FOB horn button found the "Chevy". A little hassle because of an error in their bookkeeping but not bad overall.
The TSA: A Mixed Experience
I knew TSA had a new expedited precheck category but since my flights have been infrequent lately, mostly holidays and family events like funerals, I really hadn't looked into it. On my outgoing trip to Texas. It was a LONG line. My PC bag held multiple devices (including my Amazon tablet), the shoes, my jacket, my keys, my wallet--oh yes, I got scolded over a couple of cough drops left in my pocket. I forgot about the stupid belt, and my jeans promptly fell down in full view of a 3-year-old girl, probably scarring her for life. (I was wearing underwear, but nobody needs to see that.) I had the longest pat down I've ever had in my life, including my former girlfriends and personal doctors; it was professional, but I was miserable. It probably took 10-15 minutes in the post-scan area before I was ready to proceed to my gate. The whole process is a kabuki dance: does anyone really feel safer because my belt buckle has been scrutinized, an agent pokes a baby's diaper, or someone checks a voluptuous woman's breasts?The return trip was a different story. I still don't know how or why such a wonderful thing happened, but my boarding passes showed a TSA precheck status, meaning I could go into a much shorter line with streamlined scanning processes--no hassles over removing shoes, jackets, belts, removing laptops from bags, etc. I think it was my fastest time through security since the pre-9/11 days.
I don't know what I did to earn this status, but I hope to repeat the experience in the future.
