American Express has an agreement with CLEAR that brings customers to the service that helps expedite airport security, and offers cardmembers a statement credit covering their fees (in whole or in part).
It wasn’t surprising to see these two brands come together, since American Express close partner Delta owns a stake in CLEAR. Amex announced a partnership with CLEAR in 2019 and included a CLEAR credit as part of its 2019 refresh of its Green product. Then they brought the benefit to Platinum in July 2021.
Like most merchant-funded offers, these deals are temporary.
- Brands build a customer base by partnering with the bank
- Eventually they may determine they’ve achieved all they can through the partnership
- And may be giving discounts, through the bank, that are more costly than whatever attrition they’ll experience.
The benefit would have expired this year, but the good news is that American Express has exercised the first of its two one-year extensions contained in their existing agreement. That means eligible American Express Card Members who enroll in CLEAR and pay using their American Express card will continue to receive up to $189 in annual statement credits for their membership purchases.
That includes consumer, small business, and corporate Platinum cards as well as the consumer Green and Hilton Aspire products.
Personally I find CLEAR to be a great tool, for selective use out of my toolkit. Sometimes it’s faster to just use PreCheck. But I want the option to take the shortest path through security on any given trip.
Whether or not the benefit extends into 2026 is up to American Express, as I understand it, and after that it would be a matter of negotiating a new agreement.
Information about American Express products in this post was collected independently and neither provided nor reviewed by their issuer.
Sure, it’s an extra tool, but all this things are getting so ubiquetous, there is hardly any benefit any more.
Not a benefit at all anymore. Clear line is longer and slower than TSA Pre now. Consistently this way at BNA, AUS, LGA, SJC, etc.
I wonder why they did not offer it as part of the Delta SkyMiles Reserve card; that seems like it would be a perfect fit, considering Delta + CLEAR.
@Matthew J – just a guess, but CLEAR has a separate marketing arrangement with Delta, if you’re CLEAR why invest in marketing to the same customer base twice?
I did not realize this benefit was temporary. I would never pay for CLEAR out of pocket on an annual basis, but I could see myself paying for it as needed if the service were offered in one-offs when you’re really crunched for time. Say instead of $189/year – I would pay $49/instance of being escorted to the front of the line, plus maybe a CLEAR ambassador handling my bags so I only have to walk through a metal detector. In such an arrangement I would expect access to the front of every line: document checker, baggage scanner, metal detector. Often I’ve cleared the TSA document checker but am stuck in a backed up line for the baggage scanner (seems to be a thing with the ANALogic machines).
Add LAS to the “TSA line is quicker” airport list. I’ve had Clear since before it was Clear. Now it’s more a hindrance than a help.
As long as it is a benefit with AMEX I will continue to renew it but once that is gone, then goodbye. I primarily use it at DAL and I can only see minimal benefits to it. Certainly not enough to pay for it on my own.
Too bad you were not specific; it took looking at all the Amex Delta cards to figure out most have changed nothing regarding Clear. Delta Gold Amex Business appears to be the only one offering a slight discount, which is only $40. Geez… anyway I like most of your work and wish you’d explore what I submittted about streamlining security processing ake; TSA and Delta Digitital ID..BigBear enhancements coming.
Clear has been a pain in the ass every.single.time I’ve tried to use it. Between having to reset biometrics, machines locking up, and multiple employees of Clear who seem to have less of an understanding of their system that I do, it’s a mess.
I have the benefit across several Amex cards, and I refuse to use it anymore and don’t have any friends I’m willing to lose by giving it to them for free either.
A waste of money and resources. At ORD and fll has being longer than TSA pre. Will not renew
I’ve used CLEAR once it was pretty cool, but as others also alluded to the last several times I’ve been to the airport the CLEAR line has been longer (sometimes much longer) than the TSA-Pre line which begs the question: why do people choose to wait in the CLEAR line? Pretty funny. I personally would not pay for it if it wasn’t comped by my credit card.
The latest Clear price hike really f- consumers because you can’t use more than one payment card on your account (and thus can only get $189 credit even if you are entitled to multiple credits from multiple cards).
So basically Clear is forcing you to open separate accounts for each family member with a Plat Card.