Locking your cases on flights to the US

man1

Whats the deal with not locking your suitcase on all US flights.
Is this still the case.

I have heard that they will force it open at customs if it is.

We have one of those samsonite heavy duty extremely hard plastic cases with a combination lock. Should we lock it?

Dodge

man1 wrote: »

Should we lock it?

No, they'll break it open. Leave it unlocked and customs/security will usually put tape around it to show its been checked

AckwelFoley

They leave an inspection leaflet to say they were in there.

They got a case fuil of my dirty jocks a few months back

johnk123

Do they check every single case??? If they open your case and find a case full of clothes, purchased in USA, what will they do??? im going to NY at easter and planning a bit of shopping...... not much, prob spend about 500-700 on clothes. Will they be confiscated?

mikedragon32

You can also by TSA approved locks in luggage shops.

lord lucan

johnk123 wrote: »

Do they check every single case??? If they open your case and find a case full of clothes, purchased in USA, what will they do??? im going to NY at easter and planning a bit of shopping...... not much, prob spend about 500-700 on clothes. Will they be confiscated?

the simple answer is no. their brief is security,they're just checking for anything that breaches safety/security rules. they don't check every single case either. on my last spin back from the states i forgot to unlock the case and nothing was said to me at x-ray. my case arrived in dublin with lock intact. i'm sure they do a random number of cases an hour or some such system.

iMax

Weird. I had a post in here & it's in my subscribed threads, but the post has been deleted for some reason.

biko

Leave case open and just duct tape it shut. Or get those TSA locks.
They nearly killed my poor suitcase last time.

tabatha

i came back from new york at christmas and had locked my cases. when they arrived at dublin i noticed the lock off one missing. they had put a leaflet inside along with the lock (that had to be cut off!) saying it was a random security check thing. i travel to the us a lot and never had this happen before not that it bothered me. you can put any locks on you want just be aware that they might do a security check and cut the lock off.

Third_Echelon

I travel to the states quite a bit. I have one of the cases that the OP mentioned with the combo lock.

I lock it every time and I've never had any problems. Each bag is scanned by X-Ray. If they see something which they need to take a closer look at, they will open it. If its just clothes, then you are generally fine.

TSA are not customs. They are security.

brettmirl

http://www.tsa.gov/travelers/airtravel/assistant/locks.shtm
That gives you more details on the approved locks.

I got paged before in Philadelphia airport to come and unlock my bag...they must have been in a good mood that day and decided not to break the lock!