Were you planning on throwing away your TSA-approved lock on arrival in the US? If you want to put a lock on your luggage, get a TSA lock, and use it everywhere.

Being a stingy I was hoping I wouldn't need to buy any at all. :D

Got perfectly good locks as it is but they're not TSA ones.

no comment on stingy, 'cos that would be individual ;)

If you want to gamble, you could use the regular lock on the journey to USA. Then again on the internal domestic (assuming there is one)...and if the lock does not get AK47'd, it'll be available for the home-bound.

However you run the risk that they not only massacre the lock but the suitcase too.

<hmmm, wonder if I should go into TSA...I quite fancy beating up suitcases to take out stress :D>

After having repeated occurrences of having had my locks cut off mainly on US domestic legs after TATL, and finding the "we were here" TSA calling card slip inside, I stopped locking the bags. Can't remember finding a slip inside a normal suitcase since. Exception being golf bags, which they always seem to open.

Compared to me you've been very lucky then.

Think of the TSA locks as an investment and that they may save your bags from being savaged by the TSA boltcutters.

I have one of those bands that goes round the case with a TSA lock. The case itself, a £5 out of an Oxfam shop, is a Delsey combination lock job, and I've put a label above the lock with the number. You can't see the number until the band is removed.

It's Survived 2 trips to the US and several domestic legs intact.

I'll just buy some and give them to my wife as an early Xmas present.

So, yes, you must use TSA locks going or coming or in the good old USA.

However, the TSA employees, who have the keys to the locks, are as guilty as baggage handlers of stealing stuff. Recently, a TSA agent in Florida stole over $50,000 worth of electronics from checked baggage in a 6 month period. He would stuff iPads, GPS receivers, you name it, down his pants. He would sell the stolen items online. Just go to news.google.com and search "tsa thefts". Plenty of articles to read.

Yup - over 1,000 sectors in the last decade and have never ever locked a bag and as far as I'm aware, nothing has ever gone missing.

Concur. I use the TSA locks as they cost about the same as good non-TSA locks, and I carry spares in case they chop the lock anyway. I never check anything valuable--clean clothes and dirty laundry are about all they find. Cameras and electronics go in the cabin with me.

The darling TSA did for my Samsonite's combination lock on my second or third trip to the states. It still closes/latches & I'm still using the case 5+ years later, it's just the lock that doesn't work. YMMV.

Slightly OT, but what do people use to remove their cable ties at the other end? I've always been worried that anything capable of cutting a cable tie runs the risk of being over-zealously confiscated from hand luggage. Nail clippers, maybe?

Learned this the hard way, the first time I did this. Ended up in my hotel room with a sealed suitcase and looking like an idiot. Found a chamber maid in the corridor who found a pair of scissors and did the necessary.
Having learned my lesson, I now leave a miniature swiss knife in an outer (unlocked) pocket of the case and use that to open my case. My stock of cable ties is also in there.

I am only using TSA locks on when I (seldomly) need something to check in on a flight to/from or within the US. I don't trust the TSA guy and I don't trust the baggage handlers at ORD, LAX, MIA, JFK ...... . My experience is that the TSA rambos use tools and destroy your property with and without TSA locks. I have one "US" suitcase.

For the rest of the world I NEVER use the luggage with TSA locks, as all airport and hotel thieves have a copy and can easily get into your suitcases undetected. I am not afraid in Asia and South America of things disappearing out of my suitcase but of things appearing in my bags. I have replaced on my trusted Rimova's all TSA locks with NON TSA locks.