Under The Counter has a hot travel tip for any retailers heading stateside this summer: your Costco membership card may bag you some mega packs of bog roll, but it won’t get you on a plane.
This may sound like common sense, but apparently – unlike the Auld Boy – it’s not common enough. The US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) recently had to issue a public reminder that a Costco card is not a valid form of identification under new REAL ID regulations.
Yes, REAL ID. As in, not imaginary. Not your gym pass. Not that Blockbuster Video card you found festering at the back of a drawer. A REAL ID is a federally compliant, if somewhat shouty, form of identification that keeps Homeland Security happy. To make it easier for the hard of thinking to recognise, it’s got a wee star on it, not a barcode that gets you cut-price croissants.
The TSA, clearly at the end of its rope (and probably a long shift rooting through all manner of unsavoury suitcases), posted: “We love hot dogs and rotisserie chickens as much as the next person, but please stop telling people their Costco card counts as a REAL ID because it absolutely does not.”
So that’s that cleared up. But the real (not REAL) mystery remains: who started this wholesale-sized whopper in the first place?
Was it a rogue Makro employee? Or just some deluded soul who really, really wanted to board a flight with nothing but a 64-pack of muffins and nae passport?
Either way, the Auld Boy’s advice is simple: if your ID gets you free samples, it probably won’t get you through airport security.
