LAX Customs teaches me a lesson - always buy a souvenir
 

Went to Thailand for a few days to sit in the sun and burn some MP miles. For some reason, awards to Thailand are fairly easy to get these days :) Anyway, I get sick while I'm there and don't feel well enough to purchase souvenirs. I fill out my Customs form honestly and boy, that was a mistake. An extra hour in line waiting for secondary Customs questioning where the Customs agent asked me 4 - 5 times "Are you sure you don't have anything to declare?" "No". Lets me walk out without even looking through my stuff.

I get it. Lesson learned. Buy something and declare it. My bad. :mad:

LAX Customs teaches me a lesson - always buy a souvenir
 

They still could have sent you to secondary even if you had declared something. What lesson does that teaches you then?

I often return from Southeast Asia and write down that I bought nothing, it doesn't seem to phase them.

Maybe the fact that you went to Thailand for "a few days" is what triggered suspicion.

What questions did the primary officer ask you before referring you to secondary inspection?

Is it possible they have a record of you bringing back undeclared stuff before?

Thailand is a possible destination for . . . well, sexual tourism of the underage variety. The officer may have been interested in gauging your demeanor in answering the questions rather than interested in the actual answers. Whatever you said and how you said it didn't sufficiently pique the interest of the officer. On a less busy day, you might have gotten an electronics search under the same set of circumstances.

When going on a leisure trip abroad and declaring nothing as being acquired abroad when returning, the chances of being considered suspect -- for who knows what -- rises at least somewhat for many persons.

I rarely acquire anything on my trips abroad except for say newspapers, magazines and airline amenity kits/hotel amenities, but they get declared by me. I've done lots of trips to Thailand and it's never been an issue for me. Then again I have family there.

So I am a legal resident pf uSA. When I go to my birth country I do buy female intimates. Should I tell customs that I bought brah's and undies? That sound pretty sick to me. I sometimes even have toilet papper/tissues in cause an airport does not have it. Do I declare that?

Declare clothing and toiletries.

You declare clothing. It's not complicated.

For the OP, any trips that out of the usual are likely to get you questioned. It's their job and why they do it. Fly to Columbia for the afternoon with a big suitcase and see what happens.

They're trying to do things like stop drug trafficking, trafficking in endangered animals, etc.

Just be happy you weren't flying through Miami. Even without questioning that can take well over an hour.

http://www.vocabulary.com/articles/c...ds/faze-phase/
IIRC, also drugs. Lots of fun things to do on a long weekend in BKK. :D

I travel internationally about twice a year. I'm not exactly a stranger to CBP. And no, I've never had a history of customs violations. Heck, it's not even the first time I've been to Thailand. It is the first time I've come home from vacation without something of token value declared.

I mean, driving across the border from Mexico after a caving expedition 20 years ago, I expected the drug dogs. As I was standing in line I was more worried about explaining to Customs that my shirts were straight from JC Penney, not a tailor in Bangkok.

I travel Internationally about 100,000 a year, I do have GE and do not purchase anything while out of the country and that is what I tap no to every question on the GE machine, have never been stopped or questioned and that included a 3 day weekend trip to Bogota.

They can obviously see you're a business traveler, for a business traveler not to buy something wouldn't be unusual.

Tourists usually buy souvenirs, though.

We have gotten repeated questioning from an official at SFO over a low value declared on a trip to China--guy, can't you see the screenfull of trips?? Does it not occur to you that we already have whatever we want in souvenirs? Repeated trips to one country, she's obviously speaking English with an accent and it's clearly not her native language--doesn't that obviously add up to relatives over there??

Thanks I appreciate that. I think I knew that at one point and forgot.

The only drugs I see there are crap Laotian weed. Wouldn't make BKK my destination of choice if that's what I was into.

Actually, it's not, but CBP, which bases all of its policies on simplistic, uninformed stereotypes, believes it is, so they tend to harass people who go there.