TSA throwing out non-original bottles
 

Just heard from a friend who lost much of her beauty kit at a check point today. She had repackaged beauty products into the generic bottles sold at travel stores with her beauty and make up products that she buys in regular size bottles.

All of her non-original containers were taken and thrown out.

She was able to keep her hotel sized shampoo and conditioner in the original bottles that had the number of ounces printed on the bottle (3 ounce or less).

This is not going to get any easier.

Ugh. That's just stupid. I foresee TSA Approved™ bottles in our near future. :rolleyes:

I can see that we will be paying a lot more for those products! Well, being careful of the do it yourself bottles does make sense, but I've saved an awful lot of money using those since the 3 ounce rule came in.

I just checked, my generic bottles(purchased from Walmart) are actually marked 3oz. Never had anyone inspect them close enough to notice though.

My last 3 or so trips thru TSA, I've left my clear plastic "baggie" inside my carryon and they haven't said boo about it.

I've had airport screeners (in Europe) try to do this to me on three separate occasions - twice in the UK, once in Germany.

On the first occasion I asked the screener to show me the rule that says that unmarked plain bottles aren't allowed. He relented ("I'll let you through this time"); I subsequently wrote to the airport authority who wrote back confirming that the screener had been wrong. (I have been carrying this letter with me ever since).

Similar dialogue on the second occasion (in Germany), screener relented ("I'll let you through this time") when I showed him the letter from the UK airport but still insisted he was right. Another letter of complaint, another - this time from the German Ministry of the Interior - again confirming I was right. That letter now lives in my travel wallet as well.

On the third occasion - at LCY - it took several email exchanges before the airport finally conceded that they had been wrong.

AFAIK there are no rules about unlabelled bottles, on either side of the Atlantic.

The point oldpenney16 makes is that this is apparently new - as in implemented today - in response to yesterday's incident. And this is not the first report I've heard of this happening today.

Another stupid rule. What does it take to dump the contents of a hotel shampoo (or a travel sized one) and refill it with something else. If I were going to try to put something explosive in a 3.2 oz bottle, that's exactly what I'd do.

OP - what airport? The smaller stations are often over-zealous (and bored), taking regs to the nth unintended degree and abusing the passengers that pass thru as a result :td:

This would be stupid, as having a label does not prove the substance in the bottle is whats on the label ... and in my case, it never is.

DFW is apparently doing it, according to a report in the TS/S forum.

Sorry, missed that bit. Still, I wonder if they have been instructed to confiscate unlabelled bottles, or if it's something they're just making up as they go along.

That's the first thing that I thought of. How dumb is that rule?

Bobette

It's the TSA. Dumb, knee jerk rules are SOP. :p

That's what I was thinking ...right along with 'making up rules as they go along', as Aviatrix mentioned. Guess I should stop ...this is gonna sound like the TS/S forum. ;)

we need data on what is happening now, today!
 

and we need to keep it up-to-date as much as possible.

People who are flying: what is allowed and what is being thrown out?

The news is full of rumors.

We need facts.