The Best Carry-On Luggage for Allegiant Air

The box, and the sentence that matters more than the box

Allegiant’s published carry-on maximum is 22 × 16 × 10 in, which works out to 57.7 L of geometry against 45.4 L for the 22 × 14 × 9 in box most US carriers publish. The extra volume is all in width and depth. The height is identical.

The more useful line in Allegiant’s policy is the one about how it measures: the published figure includes wheels, pockets, handles and decorations. That is a carrier telling you in writing that the number on the marketing page — the one that calls a 23 in case a “21 inch carry-on” — is not the number it will use. How bags are actually measured works through what that means with a tape.

So a wheeled case sold as a 21 in carry-on can still fail Allegiant, because the published overall height of most of them is 23 to 23.5 in. Width and depth are where Allegiant is generous, and height is where it is not.

What fits, on published figures

The pattern is worth internalizing: hardside cases sold at 20 to 21 in often publish 22 in overall and scrape through, while the ones sold at 21 in that publish 23 in overall do not. Travel packs clear easily because they are built to the strict box in the first place.

The free bag is the one to think about first

On Allegiant only the personal item comes with the fare; the overhead bag is a paid extra. The published personal-item box is 18 × 14 × 8 in — 33.0 L of geometry, which is nearly three quarters of a standard carry-on.

For a two or three night trip that is genuinely enough, and it is free. The bags built to that box are ranked separately, and the carriers that charge for the bin shows how Allegiant compares.

Which to buy

• Cheapest that fits → American Tourister Stratum 2.0, published at $89.99 and 22 × 15 × 9.5 in. It uses Allegiant’s extra width rather than fighting the height limit, and it carries a published 10 year warranty term.
• Hardside with the most published protection → Samsonite Omni PC, 22 × 15 × 9.75 in of polycarbonate at a published $127.49, and 7.05 lb empty.
• If you are not checking anything → Osprey Farpoint 40. The only bag here with spare height, at a published 21.7 in, and the lightest at 3.27 lb.
• Structured alternative → Cotopaxi Allpa 35L, published at 22 × 12 × 10 in and 2.93 lb, which uses Allegiant’s 10 in depth allowance rather than its width.

What the measuring note means for a soft bag

Allegiant publishing that it counts pockets and decorations matters most for bags without a shell. A hardside case is the size it is; a stuffed pack gains depth in the one dimension nobody measures at home, and an external pocket full of a jacket adds an inch that the published spec never mentions.

Two habits remove the problem entirely. Pack the outer pockets flat, with documents and a book rather than bulk. And use a cube for the clothing, so the contents hold a rectangle instead of redistributing into the corners every time the bag is picked up — the structural case for cubes is the one that actually holds up.

How to use a box that is wide rather than tall

Allegiant gives you 2 in more width and 1 in more depth than the standard box, and nothing extra in height. That shape rewards a different bag than the one most people buy.

• A 20 in hardside beats a 21 in one here. The cases that clear Allegiant in our ledger publish 22 in of overall height, and they are all sold as 20 or 21 inch models. The published figure is what matters, not the name.
• Depth is where the extra volume is usable. A pack published at 10 in deep — the Cotopaxi Allpa 35L, for instance — is over the standard box but comfortably inside Allegiant’s, and depth is the dimension that swallows shoes and rolled layers.
• Do not buy width you cannot use elsewhere. A 16 in wide bag fits Allegiant and nothing stricter, which is a poor trade unless Allegiant is the only airline on your calendar.

The arithmetic that decides the bin

Because Allegiant sells the overhead bag separately, the real question for most trips is whether to buy it at all. The published free box is 18 × 14 × 8 in — 33.0 L of geometry — and in our ledger two bags publish dimensions inside it.

Worth doing before you book: compare the price of the carry-on against the price of a checked bag on your specific route. Allegiant prices them independently, and on some itineraries the checked bag is the cheaper of the two — which also means you are not carrying anything through the terminal. The carriers that charge, side by side puts Allegiant in context, and Allegiant’s published rules has the rest of the policy.

If Allegiant is not the only airline you fly

Buy for the strictest carrier on your calendar, not the most generous. A bag sized to Allegiant’s 16 in width is two inches over the limit at the seven US carriers publishing 22 × 14 × 9 in, and width is the dimension gate sizers are least forgiving about because it is the one that decides whether the bag drops into the frame at all.

The bags on this page that clear both are the two travel packs. Everything in our ledger that clears the strict box is the safer shopping list for mixed flying.