People have commented that it is the size of the bottle that is at issue in the baggie.......that is true up to a point.
I always travel with two empty water bottles that I fill up after I clear security. I am talking about quart size (or larger) bottles. The TSA people see them quite easily, but since they are empty I have never been questioned.
An earlier post stated that no bottles larger than 3 oz could be in hand luggage at all, and that is not true.
You know what? A few months ago I was traveling from Denver to Austin and had two "travel sized" bottles that I had purchased years ago, both less than half full with shampoo and conditioner. The security screener pulled those bottles out of my half-full quart sized bag (which wasn't nearly full), inspected the bottoms of each bottle closely and then threw them in the trash. He wouldn't allow them to go forward because the SIZE of the bottle was the important part and these particular bottles weren't labeled with their size.
A few weeks later I traveled from Denver to Baltimore with bottles that were nearly the same size and nobody even raised an eyebrow.
So... IMO, it depends on just who you're TSA screener is.
The USA seems to have the most issue with this. Checking the baggie, bottle sizes, taking off your shoes etc. We just spent 2 weeks in Spain taking both domestic and international flights. No one made us take of our shoes. The last flight back to USA I didn't even remove my quart bag from my pack--not a word.
EMPTY bottles are NO problem. But bottles larger than 3 oz containing any amount break the rules.
