The Best Luggage Brands

With so many ‘no name’ suitcases out there, choosing a trusted brand name can be a great shortcut to ensuring you get a quality case. In fact, as I have said many times here on Luggage Review, a cheap suitcase can turn out to be a very expensive item! When the wheels drop off after one year (or your case starts looking terrible), you’ll wish you had done a little more homework.

This page dives into the different brands of luggage. Many of the names will be instantly recognisable. For many readers, some luggage brands might be new.

It would be too easy simply to cover the best up-market brands. You will also find information on those makers that create lower priced and higher quality cases. In addition to the main luggage brands, many fashion houses have their own luggage. Some of this can look stunning, though you’ll need to be careful that the quality is also there.

Below you will see the most popular UK brands over the last few years. Each of these pictures is clickable, and will show you what to expect from each suitcase brand. Underneath this you will find a quick summary of each brand, then below that the ‘great debate’ on branded vs unbranded luggage.

The Great Debate: Is Branded Luggage Worth the Extra Price?

Some people swear by the well-known suitcase makers, others are not concerned. This section looks at the debate between ‘waste of money’ and ‘built to last’.

Trust in the quality of the product is the key reason people buy from the likes of Samsonite, IT and American Tourista again and again. Innovations come from these brands, so you’ll be the first to enjoy whatever the latest improvements are. There is also the important factor of feeling good about your luggage. Hey, who would not prefer to be pushing the latest ultralight spinner, rather than pulling some tatty, squeaking soft shell knock-off!

On the opposite side of the debate is the huge gulf in prices. Non-branded luggage can often be had for less than half of the price of the branded equivalents. If you are an infrequent traveller, or on a tighter budget, then that can be a significant amount of cash. Another argument is that the cases are often built in the same factories too. You only need to wait 6 months from an innovation, before the same extras and designs are available at a fraction of the price.

Those are the arguments… now, which holds more sway with you?

I’m going to come out on the side of the quality luggage. Having used a lot of different brands over the years I have found that cheaper cases cost more money over time.

Let’s put some numbers down:

Branded Case with Guarantee: £200

Budget Case with Similar Features: £85

Quite a big difference, until you start thinking about time.

If we estimate how long each will last, then we can work out the average cost per year. Let’s say the branded one lasts 5 years (Samsonite guarantee for that long), and the knock off one either breaks or looks absolutely awful after 2 years.

Branded Case = £200 / 5 = £40 per year on average

Unbranded Case = £85 / 2 = £42.50p per year on average

Using these numbers (which admittedly were made up to illustrate a point), towing around that ugly knock-off case is more expensive than investing in a quality one.

I get it, not everyone can afford the cash up front. If it were a perfect world I’d be towing Tumi luggage (and travelling first class). The central point stands, you do get the quality you pay for, and you should be looking in terms of years when you buy your luggage. Thinking in 5-year spans can save you a lot of money in the long run.

Popular Luggage Brands

Samsonite: The best-known luggage brand worldwide, and a huge hit in the UK. Samsonite are known for their guarantees (5 years), innovation (spinners, super-light materials) and for their great looking cases. Their current flagship range is the NeoPulse. This includes sizes from carry-on up to large. While known for hard shell cases, you can also find stylish soft covers, laptop bags and other accessories under the Samsonite logo.

IT: If you have seen distinctive (and attractive!) cases around with extra wide handles, then those were probably from IT. This is great quality luggage, which is built with practicality in mind. The wide handles mean that the supporting poles are at the edges, leaving more room for packing in the case. IT do make hard shell cases, though their soft cover is more popular. You will find a lot of different colours to choose from.

Many more brands to follow soon!

Fashion Branded Luggage

Many fashion houses now have their own luggage sets. These are not just the giants like Prada and Chanel, high-street names also have some distinctive luggage. Guess, Victoria’s Secret and many others allow you to travel with an individual style. The big advantage of these over the likes of Samsonite, is that you are very unlikely to be the 5^th person at the check in queue with the same luggage. You will never have any of those ‘hmmm, is that mine?’ type questions in the baggage hall either!