Hello B&R owners, or Tumi, or other expensive luggage owners. I've been a Samsonite owner a long time, always some "2 bags for $200" Costco deal, but I'm closer to pulling the trigger on Briggs & Riley luggage.

Their warranty had me thinking back to the time we landed in Miami before a 3 week Antarctic cruisetour and one of the spinner wheels on my wife's large checked bag was knocked off by the luggage handlers. AA's option was to send it to repair or replace with whatever closest bag they had in stock, and since we needed luggage to continue our journey, we took the replacement bag and relinquished our Samsonite to them. I don't think their bag is as nice as what I had, either. So now I think about how it would have gone if I had a bag that's as valuable as the B&R, but not being in a position to be without the bag. It could have been "worse" too, if we had a trip where we were doing a lot of walking we couldn't even contemplate "making due".. Or what if a bag is checked and is lost completely, considering that even the Montreal convention value is more than half used by the bag cost itself, before contents.

In those sorts of situations, I'm curious what you have done!