I have never had a carryon Tumi product fail on me, and they have held up on the wear and tear much better than anything I owned previously. They pretty much all look brand new even though my primary bag is 7 years old with at least 150 round trip flights (plus another 50 or so roundtrip connections).

I was actually logging on, to post this story. We just hired a new person on our Marketing team, so she accompanied me on a trip to Milan, we just got back last night. She had a brand new Briggs Torq (2nd trip with the bag), it was the medium size. Upon landing in Milan, she got her checked bag, and we were off. When we met our drive, he asked to take her bag, she pushed it over to him, and a little fumble occurred on the hand-off. Her Torq tipped over, and two of the four wheel casings fell out (re-enforced corner areas with black hard plastic). The driver carried her bag to the car then, as it would no longer roll.

She then looked up the information on repair, and no repair centers in Milan, she contacted Briggs, and the best they could do was tell her to send it in, and they would send it back to her home. Needless to say, she was out the shipping on the bag from Milan to Zurich (122 Euros). She might get her bag back in the US sometime in January they told her. She also had to purchase a new bag to get her belongings safely back home.

So what does her lifetime warranty get her?

Another reason why a lifetime warranty doesn't really help, when if you fly 100% direct flights, at least 50% of the failures will happen while you are gone, and you need luggage to get you back home.