Tidbits - I'm one who always carrys on the camera in hand luggage:
- but I put the battery charger in checked luggage. After all, it's not terribly valuable, rihgt? You can see where this is heading: my checked luggage was lost for my last photo-holiday.... have camera, no juice. It worked out in the end, but not without some nail-biting. So "valuable" doesn't equate to monetary cost!
- Several times I've accidently shown up to the airport with a swiss army knife in my laptop briefcase - something that easily shows up on X-ray and gets confiscated. It sails right thru X-ray once inside the camera bag. I've probably done that thirty times. Hope you don't work for TSA...