Black VD25 came in the mail yesterday. Ordered one from uwantsavings after reading this thread but cost a bomb to DHL to Malaysia! Built sturdy like 'brick' but a bit worried about meeting carry-on requirement as it does look huge if viewed from certain angle. Pray no eagle-eyed check-in agent for my coming flight. Overall very happy with the construction, material and functionally clever design.
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Andiamo Bravo 26" and 28" suitcases in stock at uwantsavings
Not sure if these are new items or I missed them in the Christmas-New years hecticness, but a casual scan of uwantsavings.com shows Andiamo Bravo 26" and 28" suitcases, $125 and $135 respectively. Color: "Plum"! The picture doesn't show the color clearly.
PS. For any purchase over $50 at uwantsavings, use the code UWANT10 for 10% off.
very good catch on the new savings code. GIFTY has expired. I just ordered and received another VS22 for my friend Alok from Delhi. He is also looking for the horizontal garment bag I have (he always travels with suits and is very stylish) but those are getting hard to find.
I have never seen the plum color in real life but from better photos I've seen on other websites it is a beautiful dark plum color yet more purple than in the uwantsavings photos. Not the most masculine but not impossible for a man. The Bravo series is similar to the Valoroso series in layout but uses 1050D ballistic (like Tumi) and coil zippers. So one could say Bravo is the Tumi equivalent and Valoroso a good step up.
Got my grey luggage back from hot stamping. It was a bit of a mess at first because when I was in Houston, nobody was there to do the stamping although I had called ahead a month before to make sure they were available to do it and I was told to just come in and get it done. So I brought them the bags and they shipped them free of charge back to me. Two huge boxes!
The stamps I got this time were well done by the same person and on the same press used for my other luggage. However, what can go wrong will go wrong and they used a smaller font size. So the new grey pieces don't match 100% with the grey pieces I got monogramed before. Darn it! On the other hand, if you remember how I said that the stamping looked a bit flashy, the smaller size of the new silver monogram takes care of that. This one doesn't look so flashy anymore.
For the time being the bags just sit in a closet sulking. They want to be taken out for some action. But I have no time and in the current travel climate just for fun trips are not so fun.
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As a long-time Andiamo owner, I was very sad (but not surprised) to hear they didn't make it. I have several of their pieces, and my 14 year old 22" folding garment bag is my favorite. I dropped it off at their factory in Orange County a few years ago for a minor repair and they pretty much overhauled the whole thing, putting on new wheels and completely replacing the outer shell. I procrastinated getting the telescoping handle fixed and now it's too late to having it repaired for free.
I happened to be in Orange County yesterday and stopped by Rooten's Luggage near SNA, which is where I buy all of my luggage and, not surprisingly, they had a bunch of Pathfinder Avenger Collection pieces on deep discount. I picked up an 18" trolley that should serve me well for some overnight/weekend trips I have planned for the next few months. Let's hope I'm able to get the same amount of miles out of this new piece.
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Remembering 61 Years of Service - Mahalo Nui Loa, Aloha Airlines
Just bought some brand new pieces on ebay. Apparently its stuff left over from the liquidation of the company. Anyways the price seemed good and you can get a whole set or partial of Bravo or Valoroso.
Just search Andiamo Luggage on Ebay and you'll find him. I e-mailed him about more for my daughters and he said he did have about 50 diffrent pieces so e-mail for certain pieces you do not see available.
Or
for the smaller and cheaper pieces check out uwantsavings as stated above.
Hope I was able to help this stuff is getting hard to find.
$214. I'd try to negotiate that. But these super nice totes are getting VERY rare. Only in black. Free hot stamping, though. Use it. Looks great on these bags.
Bag & Baggage does it here in Austin. Ask any good luggage store. If they have Tumi, they should be able to do it. Usually they only do it for stuff that was bought there and then it's even free. But against a little fee $5-8 they will usually help you out. They always make a fuss about how extraordinary that is and that they won't guarantee their work. Which means if they mess up the monogram patch, you can't complain. If the person doing it knows what they are doing there is very little chance to mess it up, though.
I like the blind stamps (no color leaf). But some prefer gold, silver or red. Depends on the color of the bag and your preferences.
Shipping the luggage to a retailer who does it is not practical, unfortunately. So you'll have to find someone within driving distance. Luggage and Leather did it for me in Houston. B&B here could do it for smaller pieces but not for bigger pieces and they were giving me too much trouble. I don't like to beg.
Since the packing satchel (VS22) and the duffle (VD25) are both back in stock, I thought I'd post my thoughts about them.
I used the VS22 fairly extensively earlier this year on several trips (HKG/BKK/TPE/HNL) and it's quite a nice bag. I think it's a tiny bit too large to be regulation sized as a carry-on, but it always fit in the overhead bins the long-way (i.e. in the wheels-in orientation). The bag does get pretty heavy if fully loaded, but the strap is comfortable and strong. The velcro bag attachment is VERY handy. I've had the bag attached to 22" and 26" roll-a-boards, and it fits securely on top of both sizes. I also want to mention that the bag looks VERY different in person than the pictures. It doesn't look tube-like in person, but more triangular. Durability is quite good, the bag looks almost brand new despite having traveled 60k miles already and being checked once. The leather on the shoulder strap is looking a bit tired already though; there are some deep creases on it. All in all, I like this bag a lot.
I opened up my VD25 when I received it, and pretty much put it right back in the box. It is way too large to be a carry-on for me. I know people have posted saying they were able to carry it on, but I'd feel too bad bending the rules that much. The bag is quite large and will be a checked-luggage piece for me, which is why it's still new in the box
I've been eying the 26' Bravo pullman, but can't quite pull the trigger. For approximately the same price, I can get the new Costco 27" bag and it seems like a slightly better bag. That and it's backed by Costco's excellent warranty(return policy). Any help pushing me one way or the other appreciated
But I have no time and in the current travel climate just for fun trips are not so fun.
