* Sometimes though you do have to just pony up and pay. We have a lot of Tumi luggage which is a good compromise between something so flashy (like Louis Vuitton) that it might get stolen if you miss your flight and your luggage flies ahead of you.
Some of our Tumi luggage is older from the days when it had a lifetime guarantee.
Couple times now I have had to turn in a piece to the Tumi store for repair, and later when dealing with customer service via email pointed out that ours is lifetime warranty versus their current 5 year warranty deal. On one piece, that was repaired some years ago, I just kept arguing back and forth until they acquiesced and fixed it free. This time however, when they offered free shipping as a concession but wanted just around $100. to fix everything, I paid it right away and just wanted to make sure the piece would be returned in time for our next trip, which is coming up soon. We have a lot of luggage (including Briggs and Riley which has a no questions asked lifetime warranty), but that particular Tumi piece I know my wife needs and uses a lot.
As far as that Louis Vuitton luggage, I bought only one suitcase from them and used it exactly once. It is so expensive, like in the five thousand dollar range, that you don't even want to use it. Now, the newest carbon fiber Tumis are up around two grand too, but all the Tumis we have date from when they cost something like $900. or so max. Actually the new carbon fiber Tumis might be worth investigating because one downside to most Tumis including the ones we have is that they are durable because they have solid frames inside that ballistic nylon, which makes them pretty heavy, even empty, leaving less capacity before hitting the airline 50 lb. limit. And still, carbon fiber or not, most people have no idea what a "Tumi" even is, and would not target those bags for theft (notwithstanding that these days a lot of people, including us, have AirTags hidden in the bags to track them).
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