A few months ago, the mandatory TSA fee on airline tickets was raised from $2.50 one-way to $5.60 one-way. When I wrote about the change back in July, there was some discussion about Congress’s intention, and the TSA decided to “redefine” the definition of a roundtrip, and began to charge a separate $5.60 fee for each leg of a flight in which a connection between domestic flights is more than four hours, or between domestic flights in Alaska or Hawaii and international destinations with layovers of more than 12 hours.
It’s only a few bucks and not the end of the world, but this becomes more of a problem for me because I don’t like to pay for tickets ever (most of my travel is award travel), so these fees are generally all I’m paying for, though a recent trip to the Caribbean became a little trickier when I realized the huge range in Caribbean airport taxes and fees.
This hadn’t affected me personally yet, though I had noticed when doing flight research – if my layover became longer than 4 hours, I would get charged an additional $5.60 fee.
But now, According to the USA Today, Congress has voted (423-0 in the House!) to cap these fees at $11.20 for a roundtrip, no matter how long your layovers are.
Sounds like a definite win for travelers, and inline with Congress’s original intentions. In the meantime, enjoy this hilarious TSA parody video!
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
the tsa seems to be running at a profit with the new fees. ( or finding ways to waste the money)
LOL. I thought that all the money the TSA fees brought in didn’t actually even GO to the TSA?!!?