My wife and I are taking a 15-day trip to Europe in the Fall. I have a 26" Heys hard-body case I love. My wife thinks she'd like a 30", but wants an expandable/hard-body case. I'm trying to convince her 26" or even 28" is fine, and a 30" expanded hard-body case would be nearly impossible to fill under 50lb anyway. Plus, traveling by train, metro, underground, etc, portability will be important.

Up until now, she's gotten by with "junk" suitcases, but on recent trips to Hawaii and St. Louis, I've really seen how much her suitcase needs replacing, especially ahead of an international trip. While I don't want to buy cheap, we also probably don't need to go crazy since she travels domestically two to three times a year and internationally once every one or two years.

I'm a little wary of Samsonite in recent years, but an acquaintance just picked up one of their bags over Christmas and I was fairly impressed (for the price point).

Samsonite has a 20% + $20 sale going on right now, though, so I'm looking. We're attempting to pack lighter, because we're hitting 3 cities. I could probably give her some space in mine. I did 8 days in Germany with just a school-style backpack....with a laptop, digital SLR, and 75-300 lens in it. Any recommendations in the $150-or-under price range, or am I smoking something to hope for that?