Maybe, paying $2 for water on US, will also bring the fare down!

Paying with 25 one-dollar bills might be a nice middle ground. They'll have to top and count them but it won't slow things down as badly as nickels and quarters.

And, to the people who think the answer is switching airlines or getting Elite status on the offenders- be realistic. In some locations (CLT, ATL, CVG) you're pretty much tied to a single airline- and even low-tier Elite status requires a heavier-than-average amount of flying. If you don't fly on business, or your business flying has to be spread out among several airlines, getting Elite status through personal travel will be a lot more expensive than checked-bag fees.

Check some frozen fish. Don't collect your bag.

Eventually someone is going to say because they were charged to check a bag, the airline has a greater liability and responsibility to deliver the bag on the same flight as the paying passenger.
Will be interesting to see what the results of a lawsuit over a delayed or lost bag are.

Please refer to the Contract of Carriage. Liability: virtually zero.

Not a chance. You're simply paying to have the airline carry it the same as you always were getting, though generally for free. You don't even get a refund of the fee if your bag is lost/delayed.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (SymbianOS/9.1; U; en-us) AppleWebKit/413 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/413 es61i)

No, I don't think mine went down. I just think that without it, both would have gone up.

We're not talking about charities here.

Or, If you are not of status just check a personal mobility device and you get to check 2 bags free. @:-)

And in the UK they would be within their legal rights to refuse that - leaving you with no flight unless you changed your mind

Need or want - I may want to travel with large bottles of suncream or contact lens solution but I don't need to travel with them

On which carrier(s)? I know that the mobility device is free, and that it generally does not count against any other luggage limits, but I do not know of any carrier where it exempts one from the other fees.

I agree that most lotions and potions can be put into regulation-size containers in a Freedom Baggie- but what about alcohol, bought at the destination or in Duty-Free? Those of us who have to connect on re-entering the US are forced to check a bag if we've bought Duty-Free alcohol. Plenty of people on this site enjoy bring back bottles of wine from places they visit.

I used to carefully pack my purchases into my carry-on so they'd be safe from the baggage gorillas and the TSA. Now I can't. No mishaps so far, thank heaven, but if I come home from London and find that a bottle of the single-cask scotch in my checked bag is lost or damaged, my husband may cry. In fact, I've had to spread the risk by putting 2 bottles in my main bag and checking a second, smaller bag for the other 2. (I'm generally on American where I have status, so they carry an extra item and they don't get paid for it.)

Very much a "want" rather than a "need" item.

Don't get me wrong - I think that the TSA rule is a joke and of zero value and don't enjoy that the airlines are effectively leveraging it to line their pockets. I don't like that I had to pay $15 to bring wine to my in-laws for Thanksgiving weekend where in the past I would've just carried the 6 bottles on. But I certainly didn't "need" to carry wine with me, and though you may want to buy liquor in duty-free it is not some inalienable right nor a true "need" for most folks.

I can only find a link to that info regarding US Airways. We fly other airlines and have been exposed to the same thing without regard to status.....http://www.dartmouth.edu/~cto/02.26....g%20policy.pdf

A more effective protest, in my humble opinion, is to stop buying duty free and other liquids inside the airport. Do you want the airports to profit from the liquid ban, or do you want them on our side? Don't buy duty free. In airports where it's safe to drink the water, find the water fountain and fill your own bottle. That's what I do. However, it is an ineffective protest indeed when everybody else is happy to pay $3 for a bottle of water!

I don't think it is inherently unfair that people who carry more weight, whether on their bodies or in their bags, should pay more fees than people who carry less weight. The unfairness comes because of the liquid ban, which causes an undue hardship for some people in some situations. The checked bag fee would seem less unfair if you could make a safe choice to just carry on what you need, without fear that necessary items like drinking water could be seized at security.

Paying a fee in coins or dollar bills is not a protest of anything. It makes it apparent that you're on a budget and have to squeeze the last coin or bill, but that doesn't make it apparent that you're protesting. Plenty of people have to pinch the last penny who aren't protesting. I admit to seeing them more often at the grocery store and the Dollar store than at the airport though.

I flew out of MCI last month and brought an empty water bottle. There were no drinking fountains inside the gate area. (This was Midwest.) Sneaky. I know I could have used the taps in the bathroom but somehow that seemed less sanitary.

I can definitely tell you that my husband and I buy less duty-free alcohol now. Before if it was a slight bargain we'd stock up. Now, if we're going to have to re-check it before an onward flight we don't bother unless it's a really good deal (such as the promos they frequently have on Bombay Sapphire). I suspect we're not the only ones who have cut back.