small suitcase - recommendations?

catwoman73

Oh, and a tip to make your wheelie case last longer - put some duct tape along the bottom edge between the wheels.

I once picked up some street litter under the wheels of my case and walked along without removing it - when I noticed, quite a lot of wear had been caused to the underside of the case - the tape protects the case and can be easily replaced if it gets damaged.

kangoora

IMO there are a few things where cheap does not necessarily = money savings. Amongst them, again, only in my opinion:

From my experience, buying a high quality pair of shoes and then getting them re-soled and re-heeled is better. I've got shoes that are over 12 years old, been soled and heeled multiple times and still look good for wearing to the office

Similarly suitcases, I spent about £80 in 1983 (a lot of money back then!) on two Delsey suitcases. I'm still using them today even though the sides are all scuffed the locks still work and they are rock solid! I can even sit on them when there are no airport seats left available.

snowgo

I note that the original poster mentions wanting a case to use on buses & trains mainly. So weight may not be a main issue for you. But I am mindful that others may come to this thread who also want a cabin case to use on flights. Weight may then be an issue.

My family travel abroad a lot. We take short trips to watch european football, weekends away, travel for work, etc etc. We bought 3 cabin cases 4 years ago and at that time the airlines were more eagle-eyed regarding weight and size. It was a common occurance then for ryanair & other airline staff to weigh & measure your bags - with cases splayed open at check in gates as people donned extra layers of clothing in effort to reduce their case weight.

At that time my daughter and I put a lot of leg work into the decision to buy our cabin cases. We went to the main high st stores, John Lewis, Debenhams, supermarkets, etc. armed with both a tape measure and a hand-held weighing machine. It was a really interesting exercise (even if you do think we were a bit crazy to embark on it!) We found that cabin cases vary considerably in measurements and weights. Even when a weight was given on a label, it was rarely what we actually found it weighed (and yes - we did consider the accuracy of our weighing machine). Some cabin bags weighed more than 5 kilos - so if flybe are giving you a 10 kilo weight allowance, that means you can only pack another 5 kilos of stuff in your case. Whereas a 2.5 kilo case will allow you to take 7.5 kilo of stuff away with you.

In the end we bought 3 tripp cabin cases at Debenhams. These weighed in at just 2.2 kilos - the lightest we found and were within the measurements that most airlines accept. We have had excellent service from these 3 cases. They have been in use not just for trips away, but also for work use - ferrying training materials. One of these cases has now failed (the handle has stuck) but we think this is fair enough for the amount of use it has had. (I appreciate that others may want to get up to 10 years use from a case - but I wouldn't expect that on the frequency that we use them).

We've had no hesitation in buying another tripp case - the superlite III. This is slightly larger size than the cases we bought 3 years ago (new one is 55 x 40 x 20 cm). But it is still very light - on our weighing machine it registers 2.4 kilo (tripp tag says 2.5). As I understand it, this size is accepted as cabin luggage by all major airlines apart from KLM and AirFrance. KLM want you to have a maximum width of 35 cm.

Someone on this forum suggested getting 4-wheel cabin bags. But my view is that an extra pair of wheels just adds to weight, and you don't need it for a small cabin bag. 4 wheels on a large suitcase - yes. But on a cabin case, I'd always go for 2 wheels.

Tripp cases (no I don't have any link to them other than as a customer) can be bought at Debenhams or at the tripp website. Tripp site currently has free delivery. The case I bought recently arrived within 2 days.

Tontontof

My girlfriend has a Tripp suitcase she got from Debenhams on sale. It's bright yellow which has pros and cons but I think she got it for less than £30 which is really good for such a good quality suitcase.