Weekend survey: How has the 3-1-1 rule affected your travel habits?

April 1, 2011

Today’s survey explores the influences that TSA has had on our packing habits.

Specifically, it focuses on the liquids limitations that TSA has imposed. Has your use of travel-sized products increased in the world of TSA 3-1-1 rules? If the rules were revoked or changed, do you think you might stick with travel-sized products or go back to carrying full-sized products?

Are they more convenient? Or a royal pain?

Help us find out by taking part in a brief survey that we are conducting in conjunction with travels-sized retailer, Minimus.biz.

Answer nine quick questions. Here’s the survey.

You could win a $100 gift certificate from travel size e-retailer Minimus.biz as a prize).

We’ll report on the results.

(Photo: Joost Ba kker /Flickr Creative Commons)

Tagged as: 3-1-1, TSA

Joyce

I live in Winter Springs (Tuscawilla) and have talked to a fellow who goes to our Outback restaurant on Red Bug/Tuscawilla road and he has told us that this 3-1-1 rule could be changing–not sure how! He works for the TSA at OIA. Let’s hope it’s true. Will try to find out more and let you know.
Tia

I’m not so much bothered by the 3-1-1 as I am about the inability to bring bottled beverages past the security check points and then getting ripped off by the airport vendors.
Karen

I use some travel-size items, but I also buy more items at my destination. Especially when I only have carry-on and am not checking any baggage. Purchasing at the destination saves room and weight in my carry-on.
Tom

It’s helped me because it convinced the women in my life that they can’t bring the whole bottle of every shampoo, lotion, moisturizer etc. on every weekend trip and since I inveribly end up lifting their bags at some point the fact that they weigh much less aids me.
Les

I’m with @Tia all the way. A health issue has me needing a bottle of water on hand full time – and having to spend $3 for a pint of tap water from a departure area vendor is a rip.

Carrying an empty bottle through security and refilling from the departure area drinking fountain works part of the time but it’s a gratuitous nuisance.
cjr

The 3-1-1 isn’t that big of a deal, as I never really needed to carry much beyond those limits in the first place.

In the end, manufacturers adjusted travel sizes to fit said limits. But why people – after all these years – still attempt to get through security with excessive sizes of stuff is beyond me. On the other hand, security on these limits has been lax at times as well.

So, I find it to neither a convenience nor a pain. It was just one of the first steps in the Security Theater Stairway to Hell, however.
Mike

Chris, along the same lines at Tia and Les, but a bit different. My wife and I used to use our yearly vacation to travel to many of the world (and America’s) wine regions. We would each carry on a case of wine that we purchased at our destination, along with checking other bottles. Now, we’re limited to what we can fit in our luggage at under 50 lbs! There is MUCH less wine in our cellar as a result.
Tom

Mike — use FedEx.

The one I always seem to hear when I go through security is the guy claiming there’s only 3 oz left in the tube or bottle. That doesn’t matter. It’s the label not the contents.
Jared

Wow, what a biased survey with leading questions. It is totally geared to try and convince you paying 30 times per ounce for a product is a good thing for you.

I still don’t know why someone couldn’t mix several 3 ounce containers after going though security, but my 12 once water bottle is a security threat. All part of the security show.
Diane

I have always carried travel sized products on trips. They take up less room, and are lighter. Why would you want to carry more than you need?
Rick

I would prefer to get rid of the 1 quart bag and go back to placing all items in my shaving kit bag. Now, I end up with the shaving kit bag plus the 1 quart bag. I do not like having to place the 1 quart bag in the TSA tote when going through security. I would likely go back to full size toothpaste and shaving cream if the restrictions were listed and the 1 quart bag was eliminated. There is not much value in increasing the size if the 1 quart bag limit remains.
Mark K

I carry travel size items but have never bought any of them. I get the little tube of toothpaste every time I visit the dentist. I take the shampoo bottles from the hotel rooms I stay at and when empty, if I don’t have others to use, fill them from the large shampoo bottle at home in between trips. Travel size shaving cream and deodorant are available at most mid-price hotels free for the asking. They will even throw in a razor and comb.

I always have enough of the free travel size items on hand for my European vacations where the hotels don’t seem to offer anything for free.

I have never carried anything but the travel size items on plane trips. There is no reason to weigh down your bags with excessive amounts of these items.
CTP

Being required to use only travel size toiletries is not too onerous, instead it is the inability to bring my own beverage to my destination, whether it is a bottle of wine, water, or juices that is very frustrating for me. I do not check luggage with liquids for fear that the liquid will end up all over my things in the luggage and therefore would much rather carry them on where I can control the handling of the luggage.
Meredith

Am I the only one who completely ignores the 3-1-1 and quart bag stuff? I don’t bring liquids over 3oz through the checkpoint, but I have never once put mine into a quart bag and never once removed them as I went through the checkpoint. I have also never been asked to present them except for once when I forgot about a water bottle in my purse. That was spotted and removed, but nobody has ever said anything about the various other things I carry.

I normally pack my full-size toiletries in my checked baggage if I’m bringing them. If I’m not checking baggage, I just don’t bring them, and rely on hotel samples or purchasing them when I get there.

But again, I have never been asked to present a quart bag. People happily play their role in the security theater by doing that. I really don’t care, and nobody has ever stopped me.

(My favorite bit of security theater, though, was watching Americans remove their shoes before going through the checkpoint at NRT. Japan doesn’t have the TSA, folks, you don’t have to take your shoes off!)