Lazy Man and Money

Will Luggage America be Evil?

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This post is very much a rant. If you don’t like reading rants, and I don’t blame you, it may be wise to move on to the next article.

Last month, I went on vacation. My cheap luggage from 1996 died and I bought a replacement – an American Airline branded set from Luggage America (. I was extremely excited about the new luggage with four freely moving wheels. My excitement lasted five days. On that fifth day, I took my first trip with the luggage. It performed quite well until I picked it up at the baggage claim when I returned home. It had a big hole in it. Luckily all possessions were accounted for.

As I bought it from a military base 3000 miles away, my options seemed limited. I could drive to the nearest military base, which at an hour away, would cost me a bit of gas money. My other option was to explore the 20 year warranty, something that comforted me significantly when I made the purchase. I wrote Luggage America via their website and asked for them to cover the shipping or repair costs. They responded that they’d waive the $9.50 check that they normally require for return shipping. Today I went to ship the luggage to them. It cost me $22 to ship the $60 piece of luggage… within my own state. It was nice of them to not require that I’d spend the other $9.50. As it is, it will cost me $82 for something that I was willing to pay $60 for. I’m not sure I got $22 of use out the luggage on one way of trip thus far.

When I found out that it would cost me $22, I replied back to their mail and politely ask that they reimburse me for all shipping costs. I hope they can understand that I would expect a product expected to last for 20 years to work for more than 5 days before I have to pay another 33%+ for the product. I did imply that if they sent back an upgraded piece of luggage (a step bigger from the medium size that broke) I would be happy with the company. I’m curious to see how that will go.

(Final interesting side note for conspiracy theorists: The luggage I bought is no longer available on their website. My luggage was made with an 840 D. nylon (not mentioned anywhere on the luggage that I could see), while the one new version on the website is a 1200 D. polyester. It’s only because I caught them upgrading their website that I noticed that the old version of the website had the luggage I bought.)

Vignettes of Vacation “Values”

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I’m still on vacation in Boston for a few more days. Vacation probably isn’t the right word as we’ve been running around to meet every relative and friend we can. I thought I’d share a couple of our expenses and savings in bits and pieces.

  • The biggest reason we made he trek from San Francisco to Boston was for one of my closest friends’ wedding. It was a black tie affair. Luckily a good friend gave me his hand-me-down tuxedo years ago. Though I really need to get it dry cleaned, it worked well for the event. My wife, on the other hand, was not as lucky purchasing a new dress and getting her hair and make-up done for the event. We have a bit of a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy with these things. It doesn’t look like we have any more black tie weddings coming up so this is a one-time splurge.
  • On the trip up, my “1989 luggage” (as my wife calls it), seemed to meet it’s demise. The zipper on the carry-on broke. I’m sure I could get it fixed for probably a small amount, but it was a very cheap set that has survived around 15 years (no it’s not from 1989). I was never very fond of it as the wheels are too close together, making the luggage tip right or left if you move faster than a Slowsky. We found new luggage at the Air Force base we are staying at. The bonus with that is that it’s tax-free. We compared it to Target last night and the value seemed good. I would have purchased it again to watch my wife say, “nu na-nu, nu na-nu” like the typewriter on Seseme Street as she marveled in the freedom of having four freely moving wheels.
  • I shouldn’t gloss over the Air Force base too quickly. At $37 a night in Boston, it’s the cheapest thing around. It includes a small fridge and microwave. It’s quite sizable as well. The downside is that the building and the hallways looks like a college dorm from the 1960’s (or earlier). The inside is a little more renovated – with the exception of the bathroom, which is ancient. There’s no option of Internet access in the rooms. This is why I’m not writing as much as I intended. I’m writing into a text editor and at some point will go to the business center and publish this. If you see that the above Seseme typewriter story doesn’t have a link to YouTube, it’s because I simply can’t do it while I’m in “writing mode.”
  • My dryer in my my tenants place needs replacing. It seems the vents in my place were not made wide enough and it takes a tool on the dryer’s life. The Air Force base has them fairly cheaply, but they leave the installation up to you. I’m not very good at that and will take Home Depot’s free installation. The dryer itself will cost another $30, but we have a $100 gift-card there. It might be less than $250 for an entry-level version, which is what was in there before. I will have to consider that a big win.

That’s about all I have for now…