The Best Checked Luggage for International Travel of 2025

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This bag provides a luxury feel at a reasonable price, with a capacity, warranty, and reliability that should suit most travelers. The 25-inch model should offer plenty of room for most travelers, without going over airline weight limits.

If you need a checked bag that gives you the maximum allowable space, and you don’t mind paying an overweight-bag fee, the 29-inch model is the way to go.

For the majority of families who fly less than 25,000 miles a year together, the Travelpro Platinum Elite 25″ Expandable Spinner is the best choice for checked luggage.

It’s the bag to compare others against. The Platinum Elite suitcase is a durable, attractively styled, well-organized bag for a reasonable price. It holds a full seven days’ worth of clothes for two people, and it’s protected by a warranty that covers carrier damage, as long as you register the bag within 120 days of purchase. (The registration is a very simple process, and it can be done in 5 minutes with a smartphone: Simply take a picture of the registration code, which comes with the luggage; send that picture to a number Travelpro provides; and fill out the form in the response link.)

During a trip to New Zealand, our tester was able to pack two weeks’ worth of clothes—without a laundry stop—and several pieces of camera equipment into the Platinum Magna (the previous, largely identical model of the Platinum Elite) without issue. Like every large piece of checked luggage we tested, the Platinum Elite comes only in a four-wheel (or “spinner”) configuration. More wheels mean more bits with the potential to break (as well as some reduction of interior space), but that’s a necessary compromise for bags this size, if you want any hope of managing them in a busy airport.

It shrugs off wear and tear. The Platinum Elite’s exterior is made of ballistic nylon, which can take more overall abuse than polycarbonate and will show less wear in the long run. As we’ve said with regard to carry-ons, we don’t think polycarbonate hard-shell bags are as versatile or durable as soft-sided nylon bags. (Travelpro tests its bags by filling them with 70-pound loads and passing each handle through 7,500 automated lift tests.)

Hard-shell bags usually weigh about 4 pounds less than soft-sided equivalents. However, their increased failure rate and affinity for displaying scratches and wear aren’t worth it, unless the bag’s contents really need the extra protection from sharp jabs.

The soft fabric design allows for extra flexibility and the inclusion of exterior pockets, for quick access to small items. The Platinum Elite has two pockets: a flat one (suitable for documents and boarding passes) and an accordion-style one (which provides extra storage for miscellaneous small items; this can be a lifesaver if you’re traveling with kids and need quick access to extra-small toys, coloring books, clothes, or other supplies).

Organization makes the dream work. During her three-week trip in New Zealand, photographer Caleigh Waldman said of the earlier, nearly identical model in the Platinum line, “On this trip I never stayed in the same location for more than three days and was forced to constantly unpack, repack, and maneuver [the bag]. Usually living out of any suitcase makes me crazy, but the many zip compartments [of this bag], both inside and out, make it easy to compartmentalize your things. The pockets, zippers, and interior liner seemed sturdy, and the large pull-back cover allowed me to access everything I had in the bag with ease.”(Full disclosure: Years later we married, but I don’t think that influenced her review.)

Similar to its smaller Travelpro sibling, the Carry-On Rollaboard, this suitcase has a built-in garment folder (or “suiter”). Additionally, a 2-inch-wide expansion zipper runs along three sides of the Platinum Elite, allowing the bag to accordion-open a touch, if you need the extra space (though we found this more useful as a way to compress what you’ve already packed than as an additional-space-providing feature).

It moves through the world with ease. The Platinum Elite handles beautifully for its size. Its aluminum handle extends to three different heights (38 inches, 40 inches, and 42½ inches). Although every bag we tested for this guide had similar levels of maneuverability, the Premium Elite’s MagnaTrac wheels, which align in the same direction, rolled past the rest of the competition with ease. On smooth surfaces, like those found in airports, it felt as if the bag were almost directing itself across the floor.

During her trip, Caleigh appreciated this suitcase’s smooth rolling, even when the bag was overpacked, saying, “It was not always easy to maneuver on rough or gravelly surfaces. Overall, though, given the limitations of traveling with this much stuff, I thought [this bag] did a great job moving through a variety of environments.” And it has sealed wheel bearings; these extend the wheels’ life by preventing dirt and grime from entering and breaking down the components as quickly. That’s a feature not usually found on cheaper bags. And chances are good that if a bag isn’t clearly advertising sealed bearings, you should assume it doesn’t have them. If, for whatever reason, the wheels do break, you can easily swap them out yourself with Travelpro’s readily available replacements.

It’s light yet cavernous. The Platinum Elite weighs 9 pounds 8 ounces when empty, which is average to heavy among checked bags. That’s a workable weight, though, for the bag’s spacious, 6,982-cubic-inch interior—twice what its carry-on sibling can hold! But when you’re selecting luggage this large, weight shouldn’t be your primary concern because all of the bags we tested felt about equally heavy once fully packed. The important thing is that, in our testing, the Platinum Elite swallowed up a week’s worth of clothes for two people with no problem, with a good deal of room to spare.

Travelpro also sells a Platinum Elite model that’s 29 inches tall. It’s important to emphasize just how absurdly large this suitcase is for most people. Given its capacity of 7,710.6 cubic inches (143 liters), the challenge here is to pack without breaking airline weight limits. I suppose if you were on a (very) long cruise, a bag this size might make sense.

How the Platinum Elite has held up

After my wife’s world travels, a neighbor borrowed this bag for their children’s college travels (Hawaii to New York), making several trips over the past few years. The Platinum Elite is still going strong.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

We should note that bags of this size can hold almost too much. The Platinum Elite bag already weighs over 9 pounds. So when you pack it to its limits, it may be hard to keep it below the 50-pound weight limit of most airlines—and that means extra fees. But this is true of all checked luggage.

During her New Zealand trip, Caleigh Waldman packed the Platinum Magna 2 (29-inch model) for two weeks, with enough clothes, toiletries, and different types of shoes and activewear for the terrain. Though she didn’t fill the bag completely, she still found that her luggage came in over the 50-pound limit. “Every flight I took, I had to cough up the overweight-baggage fee, and it was a monster to carry up stairs and toss into car trunks,” she said.