I am Tumi feen. I own 7 pieces of Tumi luggage. That includes the cherry red 22 expandable one that I just got for my wife.

Outlet vs retailers.

I agree with the post that the outlet does not carry all of the nice G4 line. If you find it you will be lucky. But the biggest problem is that outlet Tumi bags do not carry the warranty nor are they available for the tracer program. Most bags at the outlet will have a black marker through the tracer number. I just called Woodbury and they just reiterated that policy to me.

I have purchased my bags at only two different places. Ebay or Nordstroms. I bought the bags on ebay because they were the discountinued G3 line - my wife wanted the cherry red and the fact that most G4 expandables are using the expansion mechanism(was told by service department that they are having lots of problems with this) instead of the zipper. G3s with the zipper were lighter. So ebay and I got some great deals. I bought G4s at Nordstroms because on top of the Tumi warranty there is the Nordstrom customer satisfaction. Here is a thread I started a while ago.


Traveling in Europe with 22 vs 20

I don't travel that much to europe but from what I have heard European planes are tighter in the carry on restrictions. Also the overhead is smaller in comparison to US planes. My 22 inch will sometimes have trouble fitting in the overhead. I have to be careful to tuck the Tumi tag under the handle. The G3s where worse because the rounded handle would bulge and it would cause trouble. I always make sure I close the hatch on the overhead otherwise FAs sometimes only try once and then want to gate check. That is in F on the airbuses. The boeings seems to be better. I would suggest going with the 20" international traveler. Added benefit is that it will have the zipper expansion.