Recent travel experience buying silk gifts, online check-in and bag locks.

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Jimbob
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Recent travel experience buying silk gifts, online check-in and bag locks.

Post by Jimbob »

Recent travel experience.
Part 1 While heading to England via an overnight stay in BKK I decided to buy some ‘good’ gifts for family. I went to the Jim Thompson Factory Outlet at Soi 93 Sukhumvit, not far from the Bang Chak BTS station. (I had been to the Siam Paragon store previously but choice and discounting was limited.) At the Soi 93 outlet there are four floors of mainly silk products and specials, including bulk silk, and decided on buying some silk table runners and scarves. (I was staying with relatives in the UK and saving heaps on bed and food so quality pricing was OK)

Part 2 I wasn’t paying attention to time and summing remaining transit time before returning to the hotel, check out, work out the dreaded taxi time to airport and airport check in time. At the hotel lobby I managed to load up on my phone for the first time 'Thai Airways' mobile check-in app and check in online to reduce the required front up counter time, just go to the bag drop counter. Whew, the taxi journey became less fraught despite the driver’s singalong session with his ‘Lek Loso’ CD. Of course I complimented his singing. (The plane was 30 minutes late boarding but seems normal with Thai Airways.)

Part 3 My drag bag has some seven zips for seven locks. Locks that get damaged in transit or must be small for the purpose.This time I only used one combination lock on one zip. I secured other zips with little cable ties threaded through where the lock goes and that I could cut with small side cutters stored inside the combination locked zip. It worked a treat. of course the tails were trimmed back Had I been stopped by security etc. It was easy to open the one combination lock, remove the cutters as required to cut ties on the bag, and then replace the cable ties later rather opening lots of dodgy locks.
It looked like the bag had only one lock.
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small snips.jpg
small snips.jpg (17.06 KiB) Viewed 1543 times
blue cable tie threaded through zip pulls
blue cable tie threaded through zip pulls
cable tie lock.jpg (59.8 KiB) Viewed 1543 times
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Re: Recent travel experience buying silk gifts, online check-in and bag locks.

Post by migrant »

Good idea with the ties! We don't lock all the zippers but make sure nothing valuable is in them
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Re: Recent travel experience buying silk gifts, online check-in and bag locks.

Post by DSB »

I was on flights with connection through New York last year, and despite having locks on my bags, I found a note from US customs inside my case stating that my bag had been searched. Other than the note, there was no other signs that my case had been broken in to! My case is a quality make, and like Migrant, I make sure that nothing of real value is in it when I travel.
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Re: Recent travel experience buying silk gifts, online check-in and bag locks.

Post by fft100 »

That's the TSA. Most luggage now has TSA compliant locks. If the locks aren't TSA compliant, they just bust them open anyway. That happened to me a few years ago in LA, and they also bust the head of my driver - which I didnt discover until I got to a golf course. The golf bag (inside a golf travel bag) had a proper aluminium full width, full length strong arm club protector, which was still in place !
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Re: Recent travel experience buying silk gifts, online check-in and bag locks.

Post by oakdale160 »

The TSA employees are incredibly arrogant, they have been trained to have a military type of attitude. I have a metal hip replacement and set off the alarm. In airports without the scanner, they ask me to step aside and wave the wand over me and then pat me down. They are supposed to ask permission to pat you down but frequently don't. I step away and remind them that they are supposed to ask. This really pisses them off.
As for lock busting, I have had that at LAX too.
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Re: Recent travel experience buying silk gifts, online check-in and bag locks.

Post by MDMK »

if you're flying out of the states and don't have TSA locks on any of your checked in baggage, after you check it in you can take it the TSA counter and tell them you have left your luggage unlocked and ask them to spin the locks after they check it (or after they decide not to check it). Did this a few times before I had TSA locks and every time when it arrived at the other end it was locked. Much better to take the 2 minutes to tell them you have left it unlocked than to have them busting the lock. Or better still, get a TSA lock. Even the hardshell samsonite type suitcases of 25+ years old only cost about $20 to get the old spin lock replaced with a TSA spin lock.
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