What do you do with prohibited items?
 

Hi all,
Just curious, what do you do with prohibited items (liquids over 3 oz., penknife, etc.) if you still don't want to check your bag ? Are you inclined
to --

1. Throw it away?
2. Give it to a nice agent at the ticket counter?
3. Take your chances with the TSA and hand it over?

Moderator, move this to appropriate area, thanks.

As long as it isn't something that will get me arrested I'll roll the dice with the TSA. I know that they have a horrible rate of catching real weapons so my pocket knife will probably get through.

You would probably be alright holding on to it. I was traveling with an FTer out of HNL last month. Before leaving the hotel, he grabbed a bottle of water, and some of the nice bottles of soap/shampoo/etc from the hotel. They bottles of soap were at least 4.5oz. Going through the checkpoint, the screeners took his bottle of water, but left the large bottles of soap alone.. Go figure :rolleyes:

At quick glance, a 4.5 oz bottle of shampoo may not seem to be over 3 ounces, that's probably why it got through versus a bottle of water which is usually 8, 12, 16, or 20 ounces.

And if you do get caught with something that won't get you arrested, if you have time you can leave, do something with it and then go see TSA again. I once buried my knife in the mulch in a planter outside CLD. It was still there when I got back in a couple days.

I usually put a half bottom of water of in my bag just to piss'm off. Everytime they find it I act surprised, but I get a chuckle out of their anger.

Beyond that, I'm exceptionally careful not to have anything prohibited (other than my sacrificial water bottle)

After slipping through with a 7 inch self defense auto-knife a few years back, I'm extra careful. (accidently packed it in a carryon rather than checked luggage). TSA of course missed it.

This is the knife the TSA couldn't see while they were looking at my water bottle. http://www.bladehq.com/item--RARE-Mi...ightfoot--7051

Agreed. Back during the lighter ban, I always carried a lighter with me and it was never found. Try and visualize as this might help...I wear a "bomber style" leather jacket with a deep inside snap pocket where i keep my wallet. I just placed the lighter in the pocket where it "dropped to the bottom" and with my wallet on top of the lighter, it was never seen ;). Now if it is found, simply play dumb and say something like "oh, jeez, it must have been in their for months and I never knew. My bad, here you go" and hand over the lighter/pen knife.

Agreed (redux). If it will fit in your freedom baggie, just put it in and leave it be. If the item is questioned and the TSO want's to take it away from you, simply take the tact from above and play dumb and apologetic and hand it over. Now one little tip if the larger size bottle is "store bought" or from a hotel (or something similar) and the bottle has a label which indicates its volume.....Completely remove the label with soap & water (or "Goof Off" or something similar*) and use a permanent marker to label the bottle with what's in it. I do that for my bottles of hair gel and dental rinse and both are 4 1/2 ounce bottles and have never been questioned)

*Just make sure to really wash & rinse the bottle after removing the label to remove any traces of the cleaner

The saddest part is that your pocket knife isn't a plausible threat to the security of the aircraft, but the morons in blue shirts will insist that it is.

As long as it's something that won't get me arrested and that I don't mind losing if they do find it, I just leave it in my bag. They've never noticed that I don't remove liquids or put them in a stupid plastic bag, so I'm not terribly worried about my chances.

It SEEMS that there ought to be better options. Forcing people to check luggage when they are otherwise prepared to fly with carry-on only, especially with new checked luggage fees, does not seem to be a good option. Is there an option other than seizure? Does the passenger have an option to mail personal property from the airport? Could there perhaps be an option to have certain items (tools, etc...) that are deemed a potential hazard in-flight locked up on-board and returned upon arrival? Yes, I know that would be yet another task for FA's to contend with, but happy passengers make for better work environments :D Might be a good PR move for the airlines, eh?

I got to get one of those:D

Prepaid flat rate Priority Mail envelopes are about $5 an will hold a lot of small items. They take up no more room than a few sheets of paper. You could drop your contraband into one, pre-addressed to yourself at home or to where you are going. PM takes about 2-3 days domestically.

Here are the problems:

You would have to trust the TSA to drop it in the mail.

You would have to get permission to go out of security to mail it.

They may demand that you surrender the items absolutely and not allow you to mail them to yourself.

I see the odds of them allowing this to be very low, but I may be surprised. I may take to carrying a cheap pocketknife and an envelope just to test.

Test 1: How often do they actually catch it?

Test 2: Am I allowed to keep it?

If it's at all possible, leave the line and discard the item (nearby trash bin in a restroom would be fine). This is for something like my (completely forgot I had it) Leatherman micro-tool, for example.

Never thought of handing something off to a ticket agent. Honestly, I'd be afraid 'unusual' behavior might trigger some kind of questions.

If it's something like a single LGA (partially used contact solution) that's being surrendered because I forgot a baggie, then I let TSA keep it.

Of course, I am confident that no TSO would take advantage of the situation to keep my item, but I still feel better removing the 'dangerous' item from the checkpoint area, out of an abundance of caution.

Actually, yes. I saw a little "mail prohibited items home" booth by the checkpoint at Terminal A in BOS last weekend. I hadn't noticed it before, so I don't know if it's new or if I just haven't been stuck in the security line for long enough recently to notice. It wasn't manned, it was just a little stack of mailer envelopes and a mail drop. I'm not sure how postage is paid.

http://www.airportmailers.com/

Has anyone else seen anything similar or used one?

I met a person by the name of Terri Rist who mentioned that they had been keistering their prohibited items :D.