Travelpro Maxlite 5 Softside Expandable Spinner Suitcase review

How we score suitcases & rolling bags

Luggage & suitcases — BluntBench v1.0

Every product in this article is scored with this single BluntBench methodology version — criteria are never mixed between categories, and when the methodology changes a new version is published rather than the old one being rewritten.

Each product's score out of 10 is a weighted result, not an impression. These are the criteria and weights used for this category — every pick below shows its per-criterion scores, and their weighted mean is the overall BluntBuys score.

This weighting is specific to suitcases & rolling bags: it uses the Luggage & suitcases model, not one generic scorecard. Packing capacity & organisation carries the most weight (21%) because it is what decides whether suitcases & rolling bags do their job at all, followed by manoeuvrability (wheels & handles) at 21%. Warranty & long-term ownership still counts, at 10%, but it rarely changes which option a buyer should pick. A different category is judged with different criteria and different weights, so scores are comparable inside this guide rather than across unrelated product types.

Criteria adapt to the product. A criterion that is not part of what a product does — for example a seal rating on an open bin or a Lazy Susan — is excluded from that product's breakdown and its weight is redistributed, rather than scored as a weakness. Scores therefore compare how well each option suits its intended use case; products of different types are not always direct substitutes for one another.

Every BluntBench answers the same four quality pillars — Job Performance, Product Integrity, User Experience, Ownership & Practicality — but the metrics under them belong to this product type alone. A carry-on is judged on packing efficiency, manoeuvrability and airline compatibility; a robot vacuum on pickup, navigation and dock automation. Metrics that do not apply are never scored.

Metrics marked critical decide whether a product can do its job at all: they must be documented, they are never dropped, and a documented failure on one cannot be offset by strength elsewhere. When a non-critical metric has no published evidence it is either excluded and the remaining weights renormalised to 100%, or scored from weaker sourcing and reported in Documentation Coverage — the score is never inflated to fill the gap.

Learn more about how BluntBuys researches and ranks products