American vows to ‘never return to UK’ after £236 mistake at airport security

An American woman has claimed she will "never return" to the UK after airport security made her throw away her toiletries. She did not realise that her liquids would need to fit in a one litre bag – so they chucked £236 of products.

Chloe Jade Meltzer, 29, was transferring through London's Heathrow Airport when she said she experienced the "brutal" British airline rules. We Brits are used to cramming out sunscreen, make-up and shampoo into the small plastic bags the airport hands out.

However, for Chloe it spelled out disaster when she was informed of the requirement. The young woman was forced to get rid of half of her toiletries because they would not fit in the standard plastic bag.

READ MORE: London airport becomes first to scrap 100ml liquids rule for hand luggage

Chloe – who lives between California and New York – was travelling from San Francisco, California, USA, to Cotonou, Benin, West Africa. The travel blogger – who offers tips and tricks and has been to 103 countries was enraged by the UK rules.

She said: "London Heathrow has a history of losing bags and I could not risk not having my bag. So I had to take all of my toiletries, which were all within the 100ml limit.

"However, last time I connected through Heathrow, I had the same exact toiletry bag and they allowed me to fill up multiple bags with all of the same toiletries that I had on this day. But this time they gave me one tiny bag and I was required to only fill that one bag."

Chloe, who also runs a travel website, claims she had to quickly decide how to keep her most valuable toiletries. Plus, in the chaos she lost her £173 sunglasses.

She said: "I had to pick and choose which were most valuable to me and which I needed the most because unfortunately my connections were pretty quick and I knew I was not going to have time to re-purchase any of the items."

Chloe also made the situation more tense when she tried to film the interaction. However, she says she was told to delete the video by workers who said she was a security threat.

Chloe noted: "I tried to take a quick video, considering I am a travel blogger, and when I did that a random employee came up behind me. I think he was in charge or overseeing and said that I was a threat to national security and force me to delete the video and then go to my deleted as well.

"I totally understand this but the way that he did it was very abrupt and it was pretty dramatic and scary considering I didn't realise there was an issue was filming since there are no signs around saying 'do not film' while getting your bag scanned."

Chloe now claims she will never come back to the UK due to the incident. Though, in an update she did say she realises her reaction was over-the-top.

She said: "Please note this was recorded on zero sleep and is incredibly dramatic. I do take responsibility for this but It does not make it any less of an unfortunate situation."

It’s very important to know the rules and regulations of any country you are travelling to. All UK airports except London City currently require you to have liquids in 100ml bottles with a total of no more than one litre.

Airports will be changing to new technology that lets you keep your liquids in your bag and have up to two litres of toiletries by 2024. London City has already switched to this policy – and you can check if your airport has too by looking it up on the airport’s website.

All airlines and airports will list their security requirements on their websites. Plus, you can check travel advice on the gov.uk website.

Source: Read Full Article