Has anyone used these as luggage when packing for college? We are flying to move our freshman into college. Most of her stuff we used Pack and Store that BBB offers and will pick up when we get there. Most of what she is taking from home is clothes, shoes, makeup, etc. She will be in a warm climate so won’t have a lot of bulky winter stuff either. My husband has status on Delta so he gets three free 70 lb checked bags. Since she is sharing a triple turned into a quad due to over enrollment, we know there will not be much storage space. If we use these bags, she can either just fold them up and keep them with her, or we can bring home and not have to bother with checking luggage on our return flight home.
I’ve used similar shopping bags at IKEA so if I recall, the material seems pretty sturdy and I think with my husband’s status the baggage people seem to take a wee bit more care (I never knew this until I saw “priority” tags on a checked bag of ours on a recent trip). I figured when she moves out at the end of the year, they will also come in handy for storing all of her bedding.
Anyone have any insight on them? If we were just transporting by car, I wouldn’t be concerned. Just want to know how well they hold up as checked baggage.
You might want to double or triple them up, in case one get snagged. I asked a United Airlines baggage-handler friend and she said people ship all kinds of things and these would be fine. Maybe read the Delta rules to see if they are excluded.
I would only pack soft stuff in them like clothes, sheets, pillows. I would double bag or pack everything inside in a space bag or the zip bags that sheets and comforters come in. I often use those when I pack a sturdier bag because you never know when a zipper will bust or your friends at TSA will just move stuff around inside your bags. Also, some of our duffels are canvas and tend to bleed a lovely maroon on clothes when luggage handlers unload in the rain, so we use interior bags even if they are just trash bags. THe interior bags do help keep the duffels from ending up as unsorted laundry.
I’d hesitate before putting anything sharp or plastic in the bags unpadded, even shoes.
Thanks for all the tips. Great idea @twoinanddone to put everything inside those big bags that comforters come in before placing inside. I’m planning on her using these mostly for her clothes. Nothing fragile, sharp, etc.
@Mommertons, wish I had seen your link b/f I placed my Amazon order. Those look a little sturdier.
We moved a kid cross country…flew southwest with three suitcases we got at goodwill…big ones. We did the move in…and tossed those suitcases in the dumpster. DD also had a carryon bag that she kept. And we had the fourth suitcase that she put under her bed. It wasn’t quite as big as the others that we tossed…and she used that to bring summer weight clothes home in the summers.
Between college,years, she stored her stuff in a climate controlled place she shared with three others. It was $100 for,the summer. She used boxes.
We never needed suitcases again until she graduated. Three of us flew out there with two empty suitcases each…borrowed from our neighbors. Kid was clearly told that whatever didn’t fit in those three suitcases had to be given away. No problem. The three of us who flew…took those home.
DD took the train…with her carry on.
My BIL took that fourth suitcase to his house…and we retrieved it later.
Yes, I think those Ikea bags would be fine for a couple of plane trips. This type of bags are very prevalent in Asia, especially for tourists to carry unexpected excess purchases back home. I have several of them myself.
These bags are made of the same material as tarps. I would not hesitate to stuff them with shoes and plastic crap.
I was given a similar smaller bag by folks at the orrefos store in Stockholm - to transport my crystal purchases to the US. In all seriousness. The glass is packaged in paper and wrap inside a sturdy cardboard box which is packaged inside another cardboard box… you can play soccer with that box. The glass will be fine. That’s how astronauts are packaged for descent.
My S brought home things from Thailand in bags made of tarp-like material and zippers. Everything arrived intact. He was surprised how much luggage they let him bring home, so he opted to bring as much as they allowed, including two HUGE triangular bolsters, so he bought those tarp-like bags to put the bolsters in. There were not tears, rips or damage to anything.
I’m impressed at the stories of these tarp-material bags (D has a couple but we only pack them in the car) surviving air travel unscathed. My cousin used to travel a ton on business and he used old-school hard sided suitcases, the kind of suitcase you’d look at and think was indestructible. Not so much… he used to have to replace them about once a year; airlines would inevitably destroy them on a pretty regular basis.
I have not had many bags destroyed by airlines–soft or hard-sided. We generally get tired of them or opt for a bag with different features before the bag becomes unusable. We fly about 40k miles/year and H always checks his bag. We have been flying exclusively with soft-sided now for about 3 decades. We’ve had TSA break a jar of chutney that we had packed and one wheel was broken and a few luggage tags and a foam luggage handle wrap, but over our flying lifetime that seems pretty good.
Just wanted to provide an update. I ordered a set of three from Amazon Prime for $20 - I could have gotten them much cheaper at IKEA but didn’t have the time to get over there. I think they are $2.99 or so at IKEA.
D packed the majority of her clothing, shoes, makeup, etc the bags. We had two huge bottles of shampoo/conditioner (she has curly hair and I can get a discount through the lady who cuts my hair) - packed those in ziplock bag inside a small cardboard box that I then put inside one of the bags. Also, had a small wooden sign (room decor with name and coordinates of her hometown) that I wrapped in bubble wrap and then put in middle of one of the bags surrounded by clothes. She filled them to the gills. I then wrote her name and my cell phone number in black sharpie on them. We didn’t use any space bags or do anything else to the bags - she just packed her clothes right inside them. She had a few fragile things from her room like picture frames, but I think she put those in her carry-on suitcase. Dh took all three and checked them onto his Delta flight since he has status with Delta and did not have to pay for them.
All three arrived safely! They were especially great when we were unpacking the car as they are designed with two sets of handles so that you can actually wear them as a backpack. That was perfect for getting them up to her room - left my hands free to carry all the other crap. Then after she unpacked them, we just folded them up into a small square then put them in her closet for when she moves out at the end of the year. They were perfect! No luggage to try to find space for or empty suitcases to check and bring home with us (much easier to fly home with just our carryon bags!). We left her the one carryon suitcase she used on the way out that she can use when she flies back/forth for the holidays.
I would even recommend these bags for people driving to college destinations - sturdier than garbage bags, lighter than luggage and the ease of wearing on one’s back to keep hands free to carry other items.
I’ve used one well-worn ikea bag which normally goes for 59 cents at the nearest Ikea to transport 2 computer towers weighing a combined total of ~60 pounds for a tech swap.
Worked like a champ and the bags are still used whenever needed.
“I would even recommend these bags for people driving to college destinations”
I agree. I only found out about these bags a few weeks ago on a different CC thread, and we ordered several for my youngest to take her stuff to university. They worked out very well. They fit pretty much perfectly in the back of my car – three across and two high fit very well (a second row of 6 would have fit with the back seats folded down but we used the back for cardboard boxes instead with the sharper or more fragile or less maleable items). They are quite easy to carry (one in each hand) when you arrive at the dorm, and fold up quite small when you are done unpacking. The “folding up” part is quite helpful, they will be out of the way until needed at the end of May.
If you really want to get fancy, Ikea sells a light weight hand cart that holds the zip bags. I bought one for DS but we were in a hurry and didn’t take it on our flight. Unfortunately, it doesn’t fold down to fit in his dorm trunk so I will be returning it.
I left six of the zip Ikea bags for move out and instructed DS to double them up if he doesn’t need them all. He has a rolling duffel and small carry-on for travel; the trunk and Ikea bags for summer storage and eventual permanent move out.
I’m a bit surprised 3 bags are going for $20 considering the one I used to haul 2 steel-cased computer towers weighing ~60 pounds only went for 59 cents a piece.
Especially considering I’ve been able to get/find so many of them free from friends/neighbors who didn’t want them that I went from 0 to 6 within a few weeks last year.
Are the ones in OP the much larger versions or do they only come in one size?
@Cobrat, I mentioned in my follow up posts that I ordered them from Amazon Prime b/c I could not get to IKEA prior to our departure. Had I gone to IKEA, they would have been $12, rather than $20, but my time and the money spent in gas to get to IKEA made it worth spending the extra $8 to save me the trouble and have them delivered to my doorstep. They are not 59 cents at IKEA, at least not the zip up kind that I purchased. The ones I purchased are $3.99 at IKEA. http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/90149148/
