Do your bags take a beating in the USA?
 

I travelled a lot to India and Europe and only noticed what I'd class normal wear and tear on my previously very robust, though cheap, Revelation case.

One trip to the USA almost destroyed it so before my next one I bought an M&S suitcase. There and back and a couple of internal flights and it was literally coming apart at the seams, as well as the plastic feet and edges being gouged and pitted.

I returned it to the store and the CS man looked back and forth from the battered and mangled supposedly 3 week old case, to my receipt, dubiously, before eventually giving me a refund and pointing me at the door without offering me a replacement.

Clearly a more robust conveyance for my vetements was required. This time I splashed out on an almost £100 Revelation that promised to be 'Super Strong' and sported the legeng 'Handle Without Care'.

Well this one has stood up to three long hauls there and back now but is looking dreadfully battered. Like the M&S case, someone seems to have taken a Stanley knife to the plastic bits and edge protectors.

This case went missing for 8 days on my last trip so I had to hurriedly repurchase some clothes and the closest case to hand in Dillards, a Kenneth Cole Reaction semi hardshell case. This case made two internal flights and the long haul back to Heathrow and now looks like it has been kicked down a mountain.

My Revelation rejoined me in Pasadena for one internal and the longhaul back and seems to have picked up a few more scuffs and been covered in compost.

What on earth do they do with them?

Is it just me that thinks the US baggage handlers are luggage mangling maniacs?

I don't check bags often, but when I do I've not had any issues.

A couple weeks ago I checked my carryon (a soft nylon wheelie) with no lock and four bottles of wine in it. All arrived fine, and that wasn't the first time I'd done that.

They toss luggage in the manure spreader and they come flying
out the back... some of them make it to the luggage hold while
others have a more roundabout journey. :D

The best is to check nothing and travel light with only carry-on
if you can.

Luggage is not exactly handled with care if you have observed
the handlers at airports. They deal with copious volumes of
luggage and are not about to take the time to read and
observe any "handle with care" signs

That pretty much happened to one of my bags. A mule decided to take a piss and got my duffle bag square on. Probably pissed cause he had to carry it. Good thingk everything inside was in plastic.

I only check bags when I need to carry tools or safety gear for site audits. Thus far, my Husky wheeled tool bag from Home Depot has survived 5 or 6 years and probably 200 domestic flights.

I would never, under any circumstances, check clothing or anything I hoped to see again, though.

This used to be an issue, but in years of traveling and probably 100 checked bags, I've only had problems once: when I changed my flight at the last minute to a different airline.

Checked bags are subject to throwing and stomping by gorillas. Your point?

I have noticed that in Europe, unlike in the US, they don't put my bag on a conveyor belt, toss it into the hold, or have it come bouncing out of the chute onto the carousel. Instead, a uniformed attendant carefully picks it up, wraps it in cotton wool, and cradles it gently in his or her arms while carrying it, singing softly to it all the while.

I do a lot of internal US flights, where unfortunately, I occasionally have to check luggage. I don't notice any more beating there than I do in Europe, to be honest.

I had one bag damaged in ~15 years before I flew in the US the first time. I then, over the next ~3 years, had at least one checked bag trashed each time I flew with checked bags, and for the first (& so far only) time I had a bag trashed outside the US (Oz). I don't usually check bags but 9 bags trashed out of ~14 checked in the US in ~3 years is simply more than coincidence IMO.

I've noticed that my larger suitcases get beaten up more than smaller ones when checked. My last few 28" cases only survived 6-8 trips through the hold before suffering significant tears. Although my roll-aboard bags usually get carried on, they typically survive at least a dozen trips through the hold in addition to several dozen carry-on trips before needing replacement.

The only time I have noticed this is when I flew between Brussels and Toronto. My red-colored duffel bag (checked) looked like it had gone 10 rounds with a dirty-fighting black bag.

That's because big bags are always on the bottom for stacking purposes. It doesn't matter if it says "fragile" -- it's going on the bottom because that is how you stack a bin.

One of my favorite bags has been checked dozens of times and looks pretty scruffy on the outside, but is still an excellent bag and has probably a few years of life left in it. I don't doubt that baggage handlers have tossed it around quite a bit, but I don't notice any real difference in handling in different parts of the world. This particular bag has seen a lot of Europe, Asia, and North America...

It's been lost by the airline twice: once on a trip to SNA and once on a trip to LXR. Had to bribe a hotel concierge to help me bribe multiple people in Cairo and Luxor to eventually get reunited with it... It appears that OS was the airline that originally misplaced the bag, but the MS guys wanted their cut to get it back to me.

I check my bags a couple times a year, never any issues whether in the US or elsewhere.