And each of you bring your own pen to fill in the forms.
My sis and her husband entered through LAX. There was some problem with a form, and BIL had to redo his. He asked the agent if he could use the pen lying in the vacant booth next to them as my sis, with their ony pen safe in her handbag, had already gone ahead. The agent gave him the ok, and as BIL picked it up, another agent stormed over, bailed him up and really told him off with extreme prejudice. This carried on even after the first agent said he’d given permission.
BIL said he was terrified about what the consequences were going to be. The first agent later apologised for the others behaviour.
My nephew traveled around the world about a year ago. His first destination outside the US was in Ireland, where he bought a bottle of Guinness for a friend. Months later, after carrying it in his backpack across China, etc., he flew from Bangkok to Vancouver B.C., and it was confiscated during his layover in Seattle because he wasn’t quite 21 yet.
Only once in such a situation did I actually have to recheck my bags, even though my bags WERE checked to my final destination when I checked in for my first flight.
The thing is, this was a complicated itinerary involving a code-share. The first flight was on Malev Hungarian Airlines from Budapest to Brussels, then a second on American Airlines from Brussels to Chicago, and a third on American Airlines again from Chicago to San Francisco. This was booked using Malev flight numbers, even for the American flights (that’s why they were code-share flights).
In Budapest I got bag tags all the way to S.F. with Malev flight numbers, but in Chicago they had to be replaced with American bag tags because AA flight numbers were different, and the Chicago baggage handlers wouldn’t recognize a Malev flight number.
Well, my two cents, as a travel agent, and as someone who’s done the “airline/customs shuffle” last year. BTW, disclaimer, IANYTA (I am not your travel agent).
First off, any travel agent you’ve booked with will not be able to end a file without the system verifying the MCT (minimum connection time, as per the airline), and getting a warning that the flights don’t meet spec. It can be overridden, but if it was should have been mentioned by the agent at the time. If it is overridden, it’s your risk. If it’s a valid time, it’s the airline’s risk. This, of course is if the flights are all on the same ticket. Split tickets (two airlines, different tickets) are a different matter. In that case the airline(s) take no responsibility. There is a command in the system to verify the MCT “online” (same airline) vs “offline” (different airlines). If you weren’t advised of any potential difficulties at the time of booking, I wouldn’t worry.
Second, personal experience here, last November, I went to London. Two tickets. Air Canada was the first, Virgin Atlantic the second. AC ticket was Ottawa Boston Ottawa, VS was Boston London Boston. The outbound to London was fine - I built the file with 8 hours to connect in Boston. The inbound was more problematic - two hours to connect. In this case, dealing with separate tickets, I would have had to re-check my bags to the new airline in Boston (I travel with carry-on only if possible for just this reason). The VS flight did a “missed approach” into Boston, adding 45 minutes to the flight, cutting connection time to one hour, 15 minutes. This brings us to US ICE. I managed to be first off the plane when we eventually landed, and ran to Customs. Arrive sweaty and red-faced. Explain to the guy that I’m transiting, tight connection, no time to loose! I just got waived through. So they can exercise discretion. I made my AC flight, and made it home.
When I came to Thailand over a year ago I had two choices, the cheap and fast one: take a flight from Uruguay to the US (LA) and from there to Bangkok, or the other, a flight from Montevideo to Madrid, from there another flight to Paris, a third one to Cologne with a short train ride to Dusseldrof where finally I took a plane to Bangkok.
It was more convinient for me to take the second option than going through the hassle of getting a US visa for the plane exchange at LAX.