TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin MIA customs procedure, need help :)

We’re leaving today flying SXM-MIA-PHL. We’ve not had a connecting flight in MIA ever. Usually direct from PHL to SXM.

Our plane arrives from SXM and arrives in MIA at concourse E. Our connecting flight leaves MIA at the end of concourse D boarding 1-1/2 hours later.

We need help knowing what the process is once we arrive in MIA. I think we have to go to baggage and pick up our luggage, then go through customs. Then check in bags for next flight, then trek it down concourse D to our gate MIA-PHL.

Questions:
Once we pick up our luggage where do we find customs?
Once we go through customs where do we find baggage check in for a flight leaving on concourse D?

Having never done this in MIA it seems so overwhelming. I’d like to have a bit of an idea what to do before we get there.

Thanks in advance.

Lancer

When you deplane at MIA you follow everyone else (and the overhead signs) to Immigration/Passport control. Depending on your arrival gate the walk can be long or short. Once you clear Immigration follow everyone else to your left and proceed down the escalators to the Customs Hall. There will be a sign at the bottom of the escalator listing what carrousel your checked luggage will arrive on. Once you claim your bags you simply proceed to the Customs Hall exit. There will be two lines at the exit, one for those who have nothing to declare and one for those who have something to declare. Take the appropriate line. Just to the left outside the Customs Hall exit there is a baggage drop off area for those with connecting flights (regardless of which terminal your connecting flight will be using). A few yards away is the entrance to the TSA checkpoint for your connecting flight. It's all relatively straight forward and everything is well marked with overhead signs.

Fletch!! Thank you so much. This really helps a lot.

As Fletch stated. I will add to what was stated noting the line by the luggage recheck does not have Precheck and can be long and slow, and if you have Precheck or Clear and are in a hurry we have found that if we exit that area to the general population up to the ticket counter area you can save time. If you do this when you exit you go up to the ticket counter area and go one station to the left (if facing the ticket counters) and you will find Clear and Precheck. We have done this three times now, and will do the next time even if we have time to wait. Prefer going through with Clear and Precheck, we have both.

Take Todd's advice if that TSA line is long. Lots quicker.

Agree with Todd & SXMScubama, if you have TSA-Precheck or Clear after rechecking your bags go upstairs to the main ticketing area and use one of the other security checkpoints that have TSA-Precheck or Clear. One other hint: If TSA lines are long consider going to the TSA checkpoint for Terminal E (it has Pre-Check) as the line there is usually short. Once inside the secure area it’s a short walk through a connecting corridor to Terminal D.

Let us know about your experience when you have time.

Probably still wandering around the Miami airport.

So sorry for responding late. Life got very busy once we returned home. So….Our flight from SXM to Miami went smooth but came in about 15 minutes late. The signage to Immigration was easy to follow but we never realized how far we’d have to walk to get there. We came in at the end of concourse E. The sign listing flights and luggage location were harder to follow as it is an electronic sign that kept updating the myriads of flights arriving. We finally figured it out, grabbed our luggage and proceeded to drop off our bags before going through TSA. We then realized that I had not checked our luggage all the way through to PHL when we were in SXM. We usually fly direct PHL to SXM and had never flow into MIA. We told one of the attendants our lot and she kindly handed us an orange ticket, opened the rope barrier, and let us through to an area just ahead for us, and others, who needed to check in luggage. The line going into TSA was so crowded with people we wondered at that moment if we were going to make our flight if we had to go to the back of that line after checking in luggage. We waited a bit in a line of about 8 people and checked in the luggage. The attendant asked what time our flight left before taking our luggage. I could see by the look on her face she was calculating whether we had time, nodded and checked in our bags. The sweet spot was once we checked in our bags they opened a space up ahead of the lines for us to go through TSA. We now had to walk, or rather speed walk, all the way back to the same concourse as we had arrived. Both of us had to hit the head before we boarded, and we arrived at the gate just as they were calling our group. It was all very exhausting and stressful but we made it. We logged 9,000 + steps so I thought it all turned lemons into lemon aid in the exercise dept. Lesson learned about checking luggage all the way through to your destination. I’m not sure I ever want to do a connecting MIA again, but you can’t always get direct…so who knows. On the flight to SXM we stayed overnight in Miami as connecting flights to SXM didn’t allow much time at all.