Interesting experience at BOS yesterday.

Flew in with my gf on same PNR on LX52 from ZRH. She got through just fine. I, on the other hand, did not.

Brought back food and declared it to the customs officer after getting the X on the receipt. The officer looked a bit puzzled at first, so I offered "I marked food on the kiosk. He said, "Oh, so that's why you have the X?" "Yes." Then, the officer said I'd need to go to passport control, that it would take two minutes of my time (he was actually very sympathetic about it, it was odd). I said, "Last time I flew through IAD with food they wrote something on my ticket so I wouldn't have to and so I could go right through." He sighed a bit and wrote an "A" on my ticket and said "Okay, have a great day." I said the same.

Collected my luggage, and went to the GE customs section. A younger (30s) officer told me to put all my stuff through the XRAY machine since I had an X on my receipt (didn't have to do this in IAD last time). Said OK. He then said everything was fine. I started walking away when he called me over and said "Did you go through passport control?" I said, "No, I didn't have to..." He then said "Give me your passport." I did. Two other officers (after explaining why I didn't have to said "No, that's not right." "Odd". He then said "Wait". He yelled over for "Di Santis" who was an older guy who probably is a supervisor. He explained what I said to Di Santis, well, sort of, in front of the XRAY machine (I was behind it). I yelled "That's not what I said, can you please come over here." Both officers came over. I explained to him what I did say and Di Santis just agreed with me, but the other officer was making a bunch of accusations, the worst being "How, then, do we know he didn't just mark the 'A' on the sticker to bypass passport control." At that point I grew irate and said, calmly, "That's ridiculous. I don't know your coding." Di Santis saw I was getting aggravated and said "Okay, I'll take care of this." I asked "Am I free to go?" He said yes and walked off with the other customs officer who was still complaining to him.

So much for an effortless time. Good job on Officer Di Santis! ^

Every passport.