My Cozy Suitcase Quest: TravelPro's Platinum Elite 20" Expandable Business Plus Carry-On Spinner Review

If you want an honest, unsponsored review of TravelPro's Platinum Elite 20" Expandable Business Plus Carry-On Spinner suitcase, this is the place for you.

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Some people pick their suitcase based on size, weight, or colour. But when I picked up the TravelPro's Platinum Elite 20" Expandable Business Plus Carry-On Spinner, I had coziness on my mind. Let me explain...

My need for a cozy suitcase came roaring to life while waiting in line at Toronto's Billy Bishop Airport. As I patiently queued, I noticed a well dressed man carrying a duffel bag. It looked like a regular bag but on closer inspection, it had the ring of something expensive, well made, and well loved. The man wore a luxurious peacoat and carried a conventional briefcase, so why was he shunning the conventional black roller bag in favour of something so unstructured? Was it a tiny signal of rebellion, forgoing practicality for sentimentality? Was the bag a relic from a past career? Whatever the case, it was clearly HIS bag. I wanted that. Not necessarily the duffel itself, but to have a bag that was so clearly my own. 

That seed for cozy luggage had been planted more than two decades earlier when I read that my idol, Evelyn Hannon of Journeywoman, traveled with an orange suitcase. Orange! Who, exactly, chooses orange luggage? Was it one heck of a deal, so good that she was willing to overlook the unconventional colour? Did she seek it out on purpose, knowing that it would never blend in on the luggage carousel and would make her easy to spot in a crowd? What mattered, ultimately, was that it was HERS. She and her bag were a team. And I wanted that.

​I have​ been on the quest for find MY bag, that mythical combination of beautifully aged leather duffel and garish orange wheelie bag, for years. I've been travelling with TravelPro's Platinum Elite 20" Expandable Business Plus Carry-On Spinner, a suitcase I purchased specifically because I thought it would be MY bag, since 2020. I think it's fair to say that I've put it thought its paces! Does it measure up to my lofty standards? Here's what I think after several years and several dozen trips.

I purchased TravelPro's Platinum Elite 20" Expandable Business Plus Carry-On Spinner suitcase for the least sensible of reasons. I saw it in a luggage supply store and I fell in love with the external laptop pocket.

Unlike the luggage of mere mortals and peasants, this suitcase didn't employ cheap material in its laptop pocket. Rather, it was crafted from a soft, plush, cozy material that was not unlike a fine corduroy as well as a sturdy, well constructed synthetic. Instead of just slot for a magazine or laptop, it had multiple pockets and multiple flaps. Just look at it! I bet you can imagine where you'd stash your charger, your business cards, your laptop, your file folders, your magazines, maybe your pens and journal. As a self-employed person, I really need to have an office with me wherever I go and I thought this highly organized, carefully compartmentalized feature was absolutely perfect. 

As much as I'd like to say that this wasn't the main reason I bought the suitcase, the truth is that it really was. Okay, I also very much liked how polished and professional TravelPro's luggage looked. Sometimes I feel a bit out of sorts when I'm travelling with a backpack or a cheap suitcase. While there’s nothing wrong or unprofessional about it per se, sometimes I feel a little shabby when I’m checking into a nicer hotel. As such, I really liked the idea of a suitcase that was so well constructed, so beautifully put together. This piece definitely fits the bill. 

I also really loved TravelPro's reviews. SO many positive reviews! This is apparently THE brand that all the pilots, flight attendants, and serious travellers love. How could all these important professionals be wrong? The brand has an excellent warranty, its wheels are super sturdy, and its handle is strong, with a comfortable and tactile grip.  I have dashed along many an airport, train station, and sidewalk without a single problem. It looks and feels like a serious bag for serious travellers and it is. I have zero complaints about how well it has held up. Its wheels and handle, in particular, have taken plenty of abuse from my trips and they're still in excellent shape.

Cozy, well-constructed, and designed for frequent flyers who work on the road. Sounds perfect, right? Well....

I have a long list of quibbles to share about this bag. Sure, they might sound minor and, in the grand scheme of things, I'm sure they are. But they're significant enough to cause problems in my travel life and I think they're worth mentioning. 

The exterior padded laptop pocket that I adored, the one that made me fall in love with the bag? Yeah, it's utterly useless. Yes, you can fit a laptop in it. Or you could fit in a magazine or some business files. But all three of these things? Forget it. There is absolutely no way you can use anywhere close to 50% of all those pockets and pouches and dividers. Forget about putting in anything thick, like a sturdy charger or day planner. The pocket won't zip up because it's not designed to actually contain anything thick or chunky. Even if you COULD fit in some extra materials or chunky items, you're not going to want to. We'll get to that in a minute. 

The external padded laptop pocket (the sole reason that this is deemed a "Business Plus" model) isn't the only place where there are useless slots and pockets. Inside, there are two small mesh pockets attached to the straps that help compress everything. Again, in theory, I thought I'd love these. Perfect little spots for putting your odds and ends! Well, unless your odds and ends happen to have the precise dimensions of these two square pockets, you're out of luck. And, once again, forget about putting anything thick and chunky in there. 

In the above photo, you'll also see a zippered plastic pouch on the right hand side. This is a wet bag and you can use it as a 3-1-1 toiletry kit or perhaps as a place to stash your damp bathing suit. As a wet bag, I have no qualms with this. But as a toiletry kit, it's lacking. The zipper and snap mechanism by which it attaches might be fine for its role as a wet bag but removing it and then re-securing it is tricky. You have to line up the zippers perfectly and it's certainly not something you want to be doing every day or two if you're changing hotels a lot. And then there's the size...

On the front exterior of this bag are two zippered pockets, a small one at the top and a medium one just below it. You know what these pockets are good for?

Absolutely NOTHING.

You'd think that one of them would perfectly fit the toiletry/wet bag I just mentioned. Wouldn't it be ideal if this bag, which is SO CLOSE to being the shape of the top pocket, actually could slip inside it and therefore you could easily remove your liquid toiletries at airport security? No such luck! In theory, the top pocket could be used for your passport and boarding pass. I have yet to figure out what I can put in the slightly larger lower pocket. The bag's sturdy construction means that the front of the pocket has little give. And the back wall of the pocket? Well, that's the flip side of the padded laptop pocket! And there is SO much fabric used in the construction of the padding and the pockets that there is no flexibility at all. 

The end result of all this is that I'm left with dozens of pockets, pouches, flaps, and slots that are, for all practical purposes, not usable. 

As someone who adores organized systems, I was absolutely certain that this was the bag for me. Now I realize that these spaces are really too niche, too specific. Every time I use my suitcase, I think of my fridge. Yep, my fridge. Instead of having one big crisper drawer for produce, it has a medium sized drawer for fruit, a medium sized drawer for vegetables, and one very small, narrow drawer in the middle for... well... we don't really know. We use it to store garlic. That's what this suitcase is like. Lots of compartments for garlic but you're going to be mighty frustrated when you want to pack a spaghetti squash or some leeks or even just a regular old bag of carrots. 

If you're set on buying a TravelPro bag, do not get a "Business Plus" bag. There are several very similar models that don't have this convoluted padded laptop pocket that I think would be much more useful and practical. And if you're thinking about getting any model of TravelPro bag based on all the snazzy pockets in general, think twice. Unless you have a very specific item that you know will fit in perfectly, these will likely go unused. Don't let the pockets be the tipping point of your decision.

Last, but certainly not least, my biggest concern is the bag's dimensions. It is NOT 9 inches thick. Thanks to the piping/trim and the nature of soft-sided bags, it's more like 9.5 inches thick. Even the company's own illustrations, above, show how it bulges out beyond 9 inches!

When soft sided bags are empty, they may very well conform with carry-on dimensions. However, add in anything and the sides of the bag naturally puff out a bit, even when you're not overpacking. This, plus the rigid trim, is enough to make the bag bigger than it ought to be, just by a tiny bit. Now imagine if you did manage to force some extra items into your laptop pocket, if you used all those slots and folders. You'd be pushing the suitcase even wider. As one online reviewer said: "I expected a 20" bag to be in compliance with most of the carry-on rules - but the extra handle and wheel height are an issue, and it is absolutely too fat for most overheads if I actually use the padded computer pocket."

These dimensions aren't a problem for most aircraft, as overhead bins are spacious. However, I travel on a lot of small aircraft. It's the nature of being a travel writer. You get sent on wonderful assignments to all kinds of interesting places, places with tiny airports supported by tiny aircraft. If you've ever flown from St. John's to Deer Lake (Newfoundland) on PAL airlines, you'll know what I mean. You'll also appreciate this dilemma if you've ever flown on Porter Airline's older aircraft. This suitcase simply won't fit in the overhead bin, even when I've deliberately under-packed it and left plenty of flexible space for squishing things around. TravelPro's Platinum Elite 20" Expandable Business Plus Carry-On Spinner does NOT fit in most Porter Airlines overhead bins.
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The situation has marginally improved because Porter Airlines now has new aircraft. Their overhead bins have slightly larger proportions, just enough that my bag slides in with ease, though no room to spare. If you frequently fly on tiny regional airplanes or take short flights (which often rely on very small aircraft with just two or four seats per row) and having a carry-on bag is a priority, this is absolutely not the bag for you.

Despite all this, I'm still travelling with my TravelPro's Platinum Elite 20" Expandable Business Plus Carry-On Spinner. I paid a lot of money for it and it's still in excellent shape. I love all the things about it that have probably led you to this review - I love the warranty, the superb construction, the strong wheels, the great handle, the professional look and feel. I've looked at competing suitcases, even tried a few, and haven't found anything that makes me think "A-ha! I've finally found MY bag!" And so I keep going.

I've tried to make things a bit better. I have rearranged all my travel emergency kit items to try and take advantage of the interior pockets (still far from perfect but I've made it a bit more functional.) I have given up on using the exterior laptop pocket for any cozy office-on-the-go purposes and now I just use for my laptop, ignoring all the cute little pouches and folders. Having accepted the fact that I'll be using this suitcase for a while yet has motivated me to find some workarounds, which have been partially successful. Maybe one day I'll get really confident and start tearing out pockets and sewing in some designs of my own!

If I had known then what I know now, I wouldn't have purchased TravelPro's Platinum Elite 20" Expandable Business Plus Carry-On Spinner. That super cozy, oraganize-y padded laptop pocket was too good to be true. The exterior dimension problem causes stress about 50% of the time I fly. However, just because it doesn't work for me doesn't mean it's not a good fit for you. You might have different needs, different travel patterns, and different travel styles from me. If this is YOUR cozy suitcase, I'm happy for you. But the quest for MY bag continues.

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