Heystinky!

It’s been awhile since I wrote about a product I didn’t like. Unfortunately, this is not the kind of thing you can just take back to Sephora. Keeping with this week’s travel theme, this review is about my new luggage.

I had been using the same beat-up red suitcase for about 15 years. I borrowed a friend’s hard-sided spinning suitcase when I went to Europe over the summer, and it was so much better I decided my husband and I should finally get some grown up luggage. I started researching and looking at options. Most of the top-rated carry-on suitcases were $200 or more, and we could never decide on which one to get, so we never pulled the trigger.

Then Gilt had Heys Luggage sets on sale. It seemed like a good brand, and the design was really nice. We decided on the black Pulse Lite model, which was sold as a three-piece set. We thought this would be a good solution because I always need to bring slightly more stuff than my husband. I would use the large or middle size, depending on the trip, and he would use one size smaller. Best of all, they could all fit inside the large suitcase, making storage easy.

Awesome!

When the luggage arrived, it had a REALLY strong smell. I don’t know what crude oil smells like, but I imagine it’s something like this. Like chemicals and grease and plastic. While Heys makes a big deal about their luggage being designed in the U.S., these bags were made in China. Not that that has anything to do with the smell, but they're not always quite on top of the safety standards, so you never know. The suitcases were a final sale item, so returning them wasn’t an option. (Plus we had paid $26 in shipping and the box was gigantic, so it would have been a pain to send them back.) Also, they looked really nice, and we figured the smell would go away. We tried airing them out in our apartment, but the fumes were so strong it was enough to give me a headache. We ended up putting them in the basements storage area of our building, slightly ajar.

After a few months (HA! I’m not even kidding.) the smell was almost completely gone. We brought them upstairs to pack for our trip to St. Lucia and only worried a little about the suitcases making our clothes smell.

At the airport, the wheels didn’t spin as well as the non-Heys luggage I borrowed over the summer, but it was still a big improvement from my old suitcase. And they looked so nice and sleek! My husband used to just pack either a Nike or camouflage duffle bag, and I would drag around my overstuffed, overscuffed, red wheelie, so it was nice to finally have attractive luggage.

If you read my Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself post, you know we ended up having to check our luggage, and subject it to the baggage handlers. I understand the point of luggage is protect the things inside, not to look pretty. I know that my bags are going to get scratched and dinged and banged around. BUT. I did not expect the damage done to our new suitcases in just one trip. It was worse than anything that happened to my cheap old red suitcase in 15 years.

I’ve done my share of flying, including a job where I had to travel pretty much every 6-8 weeks, and I find it hard to believe this particular trip had worse baggage handlers than any of the other ones did. Which is why I question the durability of Heys luggage.

I didn’t get the kind printed with a “fun” pattern, like the ones all over the current subway ads, being pulled, for some reason, by women wearing cocktail dresses and stilettos. I think we all know those colorful images will get scratched off in no time (and that no one ever dresses like that for travel.) I got the ones covered in some kind of durable looking finish that I assumed would be actually durable. But obviously isn’t.

On the way to St. Lucia, somehow, a bite was taken out of finish, exposing the white plastic below.

Then on the way back, WHAT HAPPENED TO THE HANDLE?

The zippers on all three pieces, even the one we have never used, are starting to sprout strings. I guess we can just cut them off, but still. I was under the impression I was buying a decent-quality piece of luggage. Can’t that not happen?

The bags have other scratches and scuffs typical of used luggage, and I’m fine with that. The few things I listed above were the things that I thought shouldn’t happen so quickly, if at all.

If you look at the Heys website, it seems like it’s great stuff. They sound like they really know what they are talking about, and care about making great DURABLE luggage. Plus, a lot of it is really nice looking! It seems like it would be good. And everything has a warranty. A warranty that doesn't cover damage, just workmanship. I don't think "You made a poor-quality suitcase and now it's damaged" would work.

The cheapest set of hardsided luggage on the Heys website is $370. We paid $268 on Gilt for our set, including shipping, and I still don’t think it’s worth the price. Maybe the reason this stuff was on Gilt was because it wasn’t that great, but I don’t think Heys or Gilt would want to give buyers the impression they sell sub-par goods, so I assume this is just the best Heys can do.

What sucks is that now we’re stuck with it. (And, for the record, it STILL SMELLS.) I don’t want to spend more money on luggage, and there is no way my husband would go for it. It took me forever to convince him we needed new luggage in the first place, and we didn’t even have real luggage then! I mean, we JUST bought this stuff. I can deal with the body being beat up, and even the hole. The strings are nbd, but it’s the handle that really gets me. Because you can FEEL it. You have to grab that handle to roll the suitcase and I know it’s going to piss me off every single time I use it.

Awesome.