Carry-On Luggage

A carry-on is the one bag you buy that has a legal maximum size, and almost nobody who sells you one will tell you plainly whether it meets that maximum. Manufacturers publish two numbers — a “case” size and an “overall” size — and only the overall figure, wheels and handles included, is what a gate agent measures. Several bags marketed as “21-inch carry-ons” publish an overall height of 23 in, which is an inch over the limit at six of the eleven US carriers we checked.

So the first thing every page in this section does is compare each bag’s published external dimensions against each carrier’s published limit, on all three dimensions, the way a sizer works. That verdict sits in the Fits column of every table, and it links back to the carrier limits it was computed from.

What actually decides the price

Between the cheapest and the most expensive bag in this section there is a 4.3× price difference and almost no difference in capacity. What you are paying for, in rough order of how much of the price it explains:

• Warranty length and what it covers. A ten-year global warranty and a warranty with no stated end date are different products. So is a warranty that covers airline handling damage — one bag in this ledger publishes that cover, and it is the most expensive one.
• Shell material. ABS is the cheapest hardshell and the least impact-tolerant. Polypropylene flexes and returns. Polycarbonate is the usual premium answer. We ran the differences down in detail.
• Wheels. Double spinner wheels cost more than singles and are the component most likely to end a bag’s life.
• Weight. Getting a hardshell under 5 lb costs money. It also buys you something real on the carriers that publish a weight cap.

How to use this section

If you fly two to six times a year and you are buying on durability per dollar rather than on a logo, the route through is short. Start with the main ranking, which scores every bag on all four published axes. If you have a hard ceiling, go to the under-$100 page, which is honest about how few bags genuinely list there. If your last bag died, the durability ranking is built around what the warranty actually promises rather than around adjectives.

And before any of that, it is worth knowing that the single most common reason a carry-on fails at the gate is not that it was cheap. It is that it was bought without checking the overall published size against the airline the buyer actually flies.