TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Miami airport

I am flying through Miami this year for the first time. Any advice/comments on getting between gates and Customs/immigration process? Thanks.

Depends on your airline. AA terminal is huge!

I am on AA.

It depends, sometimes it takes a long time and sometimes you fly through. Will you have checked bags? They have the machines that you insert your passport. Usually that goes very fast, so long as you don't get the dreaded X on your paper! Then you have to stand in the line that takes forever. I never knew what causes people to get the X..

Last year our AA JFK direct flight got cancelled and we had to change planes in Miami. Because we were travelling with a 90 year old I was not a happy camper. Up until this time we did not need a wheel chair but everyone told us to get one. Thank goodness we did. The walk (for me) to immigration was doable and didn’t take a lot of time but to get luggage the walk was long (including the shuttle train) and once we got that the luggage needed to be recheck to our final destination. Then we had to go thru the whole security line. Even the wheel chair didn’t put us into the front of the line. Once thru security we rushed to get to our JFK gate and made that with 5 minutes to spare. I believe we had an hour and 15 minutes so you can see how close this was – and we had an AA aide in charge of the wheelchair and knew where to go. The only good thing about all this was we didn’t have to go thru immigration in New York.

If you have time get Global Entry. A breeze through customs/immigration and since you have a connecting flight it helps through the TSA.

Me either. On our trip from Curacao to Charlotte (via Miami) last October, I had the 'X', but Ed didn't - even though we BOTH had PSA pre-check. That was a pain. And the 'X' wasn't printed on my ticket, but I got called up to the desk as we were waiting for our flight to board. Apparently I was on the list for the 'X', but it never got printed on my ticket. Weird.

Robin

Get the free state dept passport APP and load your info before departure. Wehen you land in Miami you send it and you get tp save some time skipping the kiosk step. Only issue in Miami weve had is the line and that helps alot short of Global Entry. Miami has been equal/better than other cities weve entered including JFK, DTW, ATL, CLT.

You get the “dreaded X” for any number of reasons such as when the machine doesn’t scan your passport properly, your fingerprints are blurred, the camera doesn’t get a clear picture of your face, etc.

Good luck this has to be the worst airport to renter the USA everything usually is ok until you go retrieve your checked bag then try to get through Customs which is in the middle of the luggage bays then you have to walk about 1/4 mile to give your bags to an agent then go upstairs to go through security again then to the plane ,which for us always seems to the farthest gate . Good luck also the walk to passport clearance seems to be a mile . I refuse to go through Miami
Plus the flight from BDL requires a overnight in Miami on American

We haven't had issues leaving the US from MIA.
When we return via MIA there have been a few times we have had checked luggage and the waiting area was a madhouse and then you have to go through security again which can be a breeze or another madhouse.
We have global entry but sometimes it is just the mass amount of people that stresses me out.
As Dziadzi mentioned they had ~1hr 15min between flights, personally I wouldn't fly with less time than that.
Prepare for the long lines and you'll be pleasantly surprised if you breeze through.
Happy travels.

As I have mentioned before, MIA problems are all in the AA terminal.
Fly Delta and it's delightful and peaceful.
Cheers
irina

Dick,

Not knowing where in Ct you are located, we have found flying out of JFK on AA through MIA into SXM to be pretty much painless. Certainly NOT as good as when AA offered the JFK n/s but it was doable, even without a nonstop flight. So we will still purchase one way tickets each direction.

Coming back home again from SXM, we take JB into JFK, again on a n/stop flight which is still available.

My only caveat is we are just about equal distance between NY and BDL so it is a choice thing for us and as immigration goes, JetBlue has their own immigration hall at JFK - Terminal 5 - so it’s very easy to navigate without the extremely long walks. It also doesn’t hurt that the JFK flights are usually less expensive than Bradley.

I got the dreaded X in DFW. Stupid me had used the CI app AND tried Global Entry...duh, it's one or the other, not both...lol

We went through Saturday night and it was 90 minutes to clear customs & immigration. First it was a 10+ minute fast paced walk from our AA arrival gate. We had downloaded the CBP mobile passport app and after exiting the aircraft hit send. We received a message that we are unable to process your request at this time. The next problem-several other international flights arrived at the same time. So after scanning our passports and being directed to a line we spent 1 hour moving forward. Finally at the CBP position we found the woman agent was rude to all. I will never fly through Miami again.