In an ideal world, we'd be spending flights to the best vacation destinations simply to put our luggage through the kind of real-world tests you'd put yourself through. Our budgets are not tens of thousands, we have to find more appropriate ways to simulate those situations at home.
First, we fill the cases with a mixture of hard and soft objects and zip them shut. We walk them inside our homes, on hardwood floors, thick carpets, thin rugs — exactly the kind of surfaces you'd find in your own home and in the various hotels, Airbnb rooms, and guest houses you'll encounter on your travels. Then we throw them down the stairs. Not because we're being cruel, but because this is a great way to simulate the brutal treatment cases are likely to receive from airport baggage handlers.
Cases often break because baggage handlers are too rough, and broken wheels are all too common. So we land them on their wheels again and again from all angles. And then again. We pull and twist them. We pressed the handle. Can it support our weight and can it handle being dragged around in a bad mood when your flight was delayed and you missed dinner service at your hotel?
We take them outside, still loaded with heavy objects, and drag them across sidewalks, along old cobblestone streets, and up and down curbs. Do they sway? Are the wheels rattling? Do the handles bend? Do they scratch? These are all the things we are looking for. Finally, we take a close look at the zippers and materials to check for signs of loose stitching or other manufacturer defects that suggest quality control could be better.
If they don't survive the tests, they don't make the list.