For an extra fee, you can skip the passport line when arriving in England. Here’s that link:
Desert View Watchtower, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona
A visit to the Desert View Watchtower on the eastern portion of the Grand Canyon’s South Rim. Constructed in the 1930s, it offers magnificent canyon views and a tie to the Native American history of the Canyon.
I think these sorts of things are nice for the frequent travelers, like pilots, airline stewardesses/hostesses, business people, sales people, etc. I’m not sure there’s much of a role for them for average travelers on vacation. Besides the fees, there’s the time spent getting the documentation filled out and filed, and so on; probably as long as waiting in line a few times.
And, PHeymont, it does not surprise me that the entire thing is a way to shake more money from people. At times it seems the appetite of governments for its citizens money is endless.
As it’s described in the article, it appears the government wants fees for things like this to pay the costs of other immigration programs…I wonder if that explains the sizable fees for the U.S. Precheck and Global Entry programs, which Gumbo reader Sisyphus asked about on the forums the other day. (Here is a link to that discussion Is Pre-check or Global Entry worth it?)
The article also says it may be available to some regular-visitor travelers from US, Canada, etc. Wonder if they’ll work out mutual exchanges with Global Entry?