When I flew CO out of LAX last year, they would not let me use a luggage lock "for security reasons." They put a zip tie on my luggage. When I got in to my hotel, I didn't have scissors (not allowed to carry them on), and couldn't open my luggage. I had to wait an hour at the front desk of the hotel for someone to find me scissors that were sharp enough to cut the stupid zip tie.

What are we supposed to do? There are constant news articles about baggage handler thieves (especially at my home airport, LAX) and potential problems with customs flying internationally. Are we just supposed to chalk theft up to security now and accept it? I sent an email to the TSA several months ago when this initiative was being discussed, and, not surprisingly I never heard anything from them. I'm probably now on some kind of watchlist of bad people. This probably explains why I always get nailed for secondary screening!

Seriously, though, I've asked a lot of people the following question, and not gotten a lot of responses that make me feel comfortable about leaving my luggage unlocked. What are you going to do with this new security mandate? I'm contemplating buying and using some super cheap luggage locks, hoping that they won't need to be broken. I'm not comfortable leaving my luggage completely exposed like this. The zip tie works OK, but requires sharp scissors to open, and I'm not sure I'll always have easy access to scissors when I need to get into my bags. Any thoughts?