Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Note that I purchased my luggage over a year and a half ago and started writing this review. It's now 1-1/2 years later and I came across my notes and decided to finish it. So now anyone reading gets the benefit of my first impression as well as my opinion after using it quite a bit. Noticed when getting ready to leave for my first trip with this bag that there is no built in luggage tag. Usually, I just slide my business card into the insert on my suitcase, and this doesn’t have one. Not a huge deal, but I didn’t have a luggage tag at home to add to it, so in a pinch I resorted to putting my name, email and phone number on a mailing label, and sticking it on the suitcase for my first trip. I suggest that anyone who buys this suitcase take note to have their own luggage tag. My first trip entailed 3 flights and 4 train rides. I checked the luggage on the flights and there were no issues. For the train rides, I appreciated that the bag itself is relatively lightweight. I had to lift the bag onto the overhead on the trains, and I’m a 5’3 woman doing this by myself. Of course, it also depended on what I packed in the bag, but I appreciated that the bag itself didn’t weigh me down. When I travel, I take a wheeled briefcase with me as well as the suitcase. This was my first foray into using a 4-wheeled bag for the suitcase. What a difference that makes! Instead of pulling both bags behind me, the 4 wheeled suitcase could be pushed in front of me, glide along side of me, or it could be pulled behind me. I loved how flexible this made walking through the airports and train stations. I did notice that at times it seemed like the handle wanted to twist a little and that suggested weakness in the handle. I don’t think my bags were packed unusually heavy, but I would anticipate this “twisting” to worsen if I had packed heavier. I did find that I could lessen this affect by only having the handle distended one level. The higher it was, the more twisty it was. Something that took some getting used to is the way the bag opens. Since this luggage opens in the center of the bag, I often didn’t use the luggage racks in the hotel rooms the way they were intended to be used (Usually the top part opens against the wall and the main part of the bag lays open on the luggage rack). I found that the only way I could use it was to center the bag on the rack and open it, leaving the bottom 12-15” or so hanging off the edge of the rack. This wasn’t really an issue, but it could be if I was in a smaller room or had limited space. I will say that I found the even distribution of both sides of the bag to be a huge advantage when packing. Both sides have a good amount of space, and I thought it gave me more options than I am accustomed to. Not a huge thing, but I’m the kind of person who packs everything and is heading out the door when I realize one more thing needs to be crammed into the bag. Usually, that’s when I utilize the outside pockets on my luggage. This suitcase has no outside pockets so requires reopening the entire bag (including the locks) just to add that almost forgotten item. Hopefully, I ‘ll be able to alter my routine in the future to make sure 100% is packed before I close and lock the bag. I’m not sure if this is the case or not, but the instructions state to use a pen to open the lock for the first time and reset it. I’m wondering if ANYONE can use a pen to reset it? If so, it’s not very secure. Having said that, it’s still probably a deterrent to a thief that has choices of unlocked bags vs locked bags. It’s now been over a year and a half since I purchased this bag—I go on 5 or more international trips per year for work (usually requiring several flights and train rides) and it’s gotten a fair amount of use. It seems to be holding up well. No issues with the wheels or the zippers which are usually the parts of the luggage to go first. One last thing that I want to mention… my previous bag was not a hard case, and I found it easy to remove the bar code stickers that the airlines put on the bag. On this bag, because it’s a hard case, it isn’t so easy to remove the stickers. Once they are removed, they leave a sticky residue which collects dirt. If I were a better planner, maybe I would take them off at home and use some goo gone to get off the stickiness. Instead, I’ve resorted to using a marker to put a line through each bar code so they can't be re-scanned and leaving them on my bag. I now have a ton of little white stickers all over the bag. Is it pretty? No. But I've started to look at them like the old time stamps that people had on their luggage. Each one signifies a trip that I went somewhere.