Is luggage rental useful? We review Cargo, a new suitcase hire service

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• stevenhp1987 says:

  22 Feb22 February 11:17

  £200 for a suitcase?

  Been using my £30-£70 suitcases just fine!

  If it’s such an emergency couldn’t you just prime (next day delivery!) An Amazon Basics suitcase (or similar). They are surprisingly decent quality.

  Would be roughly the same price as the hire, but you can use it to store bedsheets or similar the rest of the year when not in use.

• Andrew says:

  22 Feb22 February 11:19

  I could see this being useful if I needed a suitcase in one direction only. I sometimes take work files or presentation materials on a business trip. If I could leave the case for collection at my destination, that might be handy.

• Henry Young says:

  22 Feb22 February 11:46

  Luggage in decent condition is available at my local council dump upcycling shop for £1. U upgraded the wheels on one I bought there and have been using it for 2 years (I fly 10+ times annually). Excellent value ! One rarely needs to buy anything new these days.

• Stephen Reid says:

  22 Feb22 February 12:36

  I’m amazed someone can make a business out of this.
  You can buy a Dakine 110L bag for under £140 with a lifetime warranty, designed for going ski-ing, although I’ve used mine to travel all over the world.
  The hygeine aspect would bother me, certainly bedbugs as has been mentioned in another comment, but do you want to put your clean clothes in a case previously used to carry someones dirty clothes back. Cargo do say they clean the cases but to what standard?

  • Lady London says:

    22 Feb22 February 15:43

    Dakine is actually the same company as Tumi apparently

• Paul says:

  22 Feb22 February 12:57

  Luggage rental has been big business in Japan for a very long time. That’s more to do with space constraints than anything else. In the early 90’s I regularly shipped luggage around Japan via services offered at most 7-11. Even today in Britain there is no similar service.

  This luggage rental is however ludicrous and like others don’t know where you plucked £200 for bag from. TKMax do branded luggage for very little money and as others have said £50 will get you a bag that will last more than a week.!

• jimA says:

  22 Feb22 February 12:59

  Sinead asked in the headline
  “Is luggage rental useful” she thought so (but then she got it for free)
  HFP readers have answered pretty emphatically NO its not useful

  • F99 says:

    22 Feb22 February 13:25

    Most HFP readers don’t comment in the articles (not that I’m suggesting that this is a good idea that will take off)

    • Dr Doo says:

      22 Feb22 February 21:53

      No but out of the ones that do comment there seems to be a high percentage that think this service is *overpriced*.

      If commentators increased I think you would find similar views based on a percentage, not commenting doesn’t mean that the person is part of the royals…

• F99 says:

  22 Feb22 February 13:13

  People obviously have nothing better to do with their Saturday than be outraged by an article that’s of no use to them. They’ll presumably be demanding a refund of their subscription fees

  • Rob D says:

    22 Feb22 February 13:45

    Haha well said! I think these people literally have nothing else in their lives. Sad really.

  • The Savage Squirrel says:

    22 Feb22 February 15:24

    F-99 Whereas commenting on COMMENTS about an article is a highly effective use of time :D.

    The world is full of products I think are stupid and would never buy (the entire “luxury” watch market for a start), but those companies don’t need to care as they have found a market and make plenty of money whether I call them stupid or not. Maye this could do the same.

• ChrisC says:

  22 Feb22 February 13:14

  Yes to a degree on the face of it this is a ridiculous concept (but then again people thought that about mobile phones when they first appeared) and I agree with some of the comments about that. Also that you can buy perfectly good suitcases for a lot less than £200.

  I bought my current ones from Sports Direct for less than £40 (one was £20 in a sale) and both perfectly servicable and meet my needs.

  But for some people this is a useful service especially the very infrequent traveller or in this instance where you just need an extra case for the trip and don’t need one long term.

  And for some people storage is a real issue so please don’t be sniffy about that. Not every one lives ina house with a garage or loft with masses of spare space for storage,

  This is very much a niche product and not suited to everyone. Just like Airportr is not for everyone but works for some (just wish they would extend their range to Brighton)

  One improvement I would make though is to put the case sizes on the landing page. rather than on a page after you’ve clocked on a particular case. Small / Medium / Large is a bit too vague.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.