Experience with Briggs and Riley warranty work?
 

I'm posting this here because this is where posts like "what laptop bag should I get" seem to land. Mods please move if appropriate.

My B&R bag is trashed. The biggest problem is that all four bottom corners are in various stages of wearing through; one corner has ripped through and the steel stiffener is showing. The only way I can see to repair this is to put big patches on the corners.

The bag still functions, but it's eventually going to fall apart.

Does anyone have experience in working with B&R's lifetime warranty, and if so can you advise how B&R is likely to handle the damage I've described? Are they likely to patch the bag, or just send me a new one?

Warranty info here for the curious.

I will ask B&R also and will update this thread with the response.

I took my roll aboard to the luggage repair store. All they said was Briggs and Riley. Give it to us, and pick it up in a week. No paperwork, no questions, no effort. I came back and they had completely revamped the bag. New zippers, anything worn through was fixed, and the bag was cleaned. They said B&R warranty is the best in the business from a provider standpoint as well.

I don't know about patching vs replacement, they replaced a panel on my bag, but the bag was repaired by an authorized repair shop, not B&R themselves. The warranty was described as no questions asked, though. They didn't care where the damage came from, though.

No experience with B&R although my 22" rollerboard, laptop bag and dop kit are B&R.

Whatever you do, don't get Travelpro. My bag broke for the 4th time in 7 years. Travelpro wasn't able to get parts to the repair place for 3 1/2 months (I confirmed it was travelpro and not the repair place). I sent letters to their senior management. Got a phone call back (nice) but was told I'd get either the parts to repair it or a new bag. It's been a few weeks now. So far nothing. I'm ready to write on my B&R bag "Travelpro sucks!"

My dad has had his serviced numerous times. They have always fixed it quite a bit, there's no needto advise them on what needs repair because it always came back with more repairs than expected. It can be slow, though. Dad had to get a second bag because it would take too long.

Repair experience with Briggs & Riley expandable upright roller
 

Clearly this is an old thread, but I thought I'd add my experience in case anyone goes searching for similar information.

I have a few-years-old B&R expandable upright roller (with the 'mechanical' expansion system). It's a great bag, but the inner plastic frame had cracked and the main compartment zipper was wearing out.

I called B&R, explained what was wrong with the bag, and they gave me a mailing address to ship the bag to their New York repair facility. (*Aside* I was disappointed that there was no authorized repair facility in Philadelphia, given there are three in Pittsburg.) I put the bag in a box and shipped via UPS ground (about $12).

That was Monday. I had a trip coming up at the end of the week (Sunday), and I was disappointed that I'd be traveling sans-bag. Much to my (very pleasant) surprise, the bag shows up on Friday, fully repaired. They fixed the frame and zipper, both of which work perfectly. They even replaced one of the legs and glued the leather handle where the seam was coming apart, neither of which I asked for.

All in all, a very pleasant experience. If you have a B&R repair shop nearby and can avoid the shipping charges (one-way, they pay the return), all the better.

I noticed that I never updated this thread with the outcome.

I live in the middle of nowhere so I had to send the bag in for service. I believe I sent it to somewhere in the SF Bay Area. The condition of the bag was as described in the first post in this thread.

About three weeks later the back was back. It looks like they somehow reinforced/glued the bottom corners of the bag. The job is airtight, but doesn't look all that great. That said, the bag looks like it's traveled six or seven hundred thousand miles, as it has, so in context the repair is fine.