Are Rimowa polycarbonate suitcases worth the money?

You can buy suitcases at TJ Maxx for $30. These are better alternatives since nobody gives a shit about checked bags, and you'd be stupid to spend money on them.

...Or he means that Rimowa isn't going to get you any stewardess action? ; )

Pretty much all luggage is "sturdy." You can buy a $50 nylon bag that will last for a decade (or longer). People buy the expensive shit for attention, which just means it will get stolen faster.

I'm rather fond of the Rimowa Topas line.

If you practice this philosophy, then you will learn the hard way that it's completely false.

I am a bit torn on this. I currently use cheap luggage and my main issue is that while I do covet nice luggage; it seems to me that it is better that your luggage doesn't stand out, for obvious reason.

If you are still looking for high-end luggage, I went thru the same process and can share my two cents if interested.

I'd much rather carry expensive carry-on luggage. But I would understand expensive, but durable and not flashy check in luggage.

rimowas are great

my luggage are the gold rimowas. they are way easy to spot. have not had them stolen yet and i travel a lot.

This type of prudence has no place on SF.

No direct experience with Rimowa polycarb but my regular carry-on roller is a Zero polycarb unit.

There is a place for hard-sided, quality check-in luggage. I used to think that a $50 nylon duffel bag would suffice, until I started bringing back some fragile stuff from my trips. You want something that can protect your gear!

On my last trip to California, I brought back four bottles of wine/whiskey in my check-in luggage. They weren't expensive by SF standards ($70-90/bottle), but they were items I could not easily find in Philadephia. I used a "cheap" nylon roller, after wrapping them with two layers of bubble wrap, putting each bottle in a ziploc bag AND surrounding each bagged bottle with clothes. When I got home, I was stunned to see that one of the bottles had leaked around the cap!

Fortunately the ziploc bag had prevented the leak from damaging the clothes or other bottles, but this goes to show that a "cheap" nylon check-in suitcase cannot do the job, even when the cargo in question is bubble-wrapped and cushioned with clothes.

As a result of this incident, I am buying a decent hardside case for check-in use. I don't think I would go with another polycarb case because frankly they scratch very easily. I love my Zero roller but it generally gets carry-on treatment only. I haven't decided yet but I think I will go with a hardsided 28" spinner of some variety. I don't want to have a repeat of the above incident the next time I go on the road.