Just two short months ago in our March 25th Collegiate Luggage blog article we noted with minor alarm/resignation that Delta Airlines and American Airlines were now charging $25 to check a second piece of luggage on any and all domestic flights.

We then called your special attention to our Victorinox® WT-22 Deluxe Wheeled Travel Bag, which is the acknowledged largest available bag that may be carried aboard most domestic airlines. In the two months since then, other airlines have adopted the $25 fee for a second bag, making our WT-22 a smart investment since it would save you $50 per round trip when carrying it aboard instead of checking it.

Now, American Airlines has a new policy designed to make air travel just a bit more expensive: A $15 fee to check your first bag, followed by a $25 fee for each additional checked bag. And it appears that the other airlines will follow suit.

So, let us once again point you to our WT-22 Carry-On and remind you that this is not only some of the strongest, best-designed, lightest-weight luggage you could invest in, but it will pay back a "dividend" every time you wheel it aboard the plane.

Collegiate Luggage's Victorinox® Travel Gear by Swiss Army Brands lets you proudly sport your favorite school's logo on your luggage, and now helps you save serious buckaroos on your travel budget.

Two wonderful things for one reasonable price.

CollegiateLuggage.com: Where complex financial issues are dealt with in five paragraphs or less.

This May the U.S. Government will begin sending out $600 Economic Stimulus Rebate checks (or $300, depending on the circumstance) to taxpayers everywhere in our Nation. From extensive reading and interviews we have been able to determine that "The rebate that will be sent out in May 2008 is a credit to the taxes you'll owe on 2008 income, but it is a new credit, so you don't have to 'pay it back'." In other words, this $600 is an "advance" on a new credit that will be presented on 2008 tax returns when you are filing your taxes in 2009 for the fiscal year 2008. Got that?

Setting aside the warm, fuzzy "Pay it forward" nature of this rebate, we citizens have been given the fiduciary responsibility of spending these monies in such a way as to do the most good for ourselves and our Great Nation. Rather than just letting the money burn a hole in your pocket, we at CollegiateLuggage.com strongly urge you to invest at least a portion of the rebate in Swiss Army Brand™ travel and business gear.

First of all, our products represent a good investment because they don't depreciate like most luggage items. Each item we sell comes with a Lifetime Guarantee. Second, with airlines now charging $25 per bag to check more than one piece of luggage aboard the aircraft, our WT-22 Deluxe Wheeled Bag earns back nearly 10% of the purchase price of $275 every time you travel because it carries the most stuff of any item of luggage that may be wheeled aboard domestic aircraft. None of our competitors can make this claim. Carry it with you on 6 round trip flights and it will have paid for itself!

So, when your rebate arrives, proudly convert it into Swiss Army collegiate luggage, knowing that your actions have, in a small-but-meaningful way, been helpful to yourself, your family, your community and your grateful Nation. It's what the Swiss would do.

CollegiateLuggage.com - Where every now and then we wave our own flag.

This particular post concerns the way we decorate each item of Victorinox® Swiss Army luggage before it is sent to our customers.

Each of the deluxe travel bags, backpacks, duffel bags and cases in our line is made of ballistic nylon which is a very tough but flexible fabric designed to withstand the rigors of airline travel and especially airline baggage handlers. You could say that Victorinox® has deliberately over-engineered the product in anticipation of the world of mistreatment that awaits it.

When the time comes to embroider your favorite school logo on the luggage, we use a specially designed embroidery table to hold the product in place while a computer program moves it along a pre-designated set of horizontal and vertical coordinates beneath the embroidery sewing "head". This is done while the actual embroidery head remains stationary, giving us the tightest-possible weave and the best-looking logo reproduction with no pinching or buckling of the design.

Our process of embroidering one item at a time means that your Swiss Army purchase is decorated individually, to order. By contrast, regular embroidery equipment is intended to decorate "thin" fabrics used in polo shirts, caps, sweaters or jackets, and makes use of 12-head embroidery tables to simultaneously run up to a dozen items at one time.

We use all-polyester non-reactive-dyed thread along with a special backing substrate for our embroidery so there is no pull-through, no color bleed and no color fade. Our embroidery designs are intended to last as long as the luggage items they adorn.

Take a moment to examine the close-ups of the various school logos shown on these web pages. You will see that our embroidery coverage is solid, with no gaps or loose stitches. We take enormous pride in the work we do on our luggage and on our luggage decoration. For this reason, when you carry Swiss Army's collegiate luggage products you "Carry With Confidence™".

CollegiateLuggage.com

Disaster... you've lost your bag!

Not to worry. With select Victorinox® Travel Gear by Swiss Army Brands luggage items you receive the benefit of the free Swiss Tracker™ Bag Tracking Program. With Victorinox®'s bag tracking program, we help to reunite you with your lost bag anywhere in the world for free.

Here's how the Swiss Tracker™ program works:

Each bag bears a unique tracking ID number on the bag's ID tray and a 24-hour a day, 365 days a year phone number. If someone finds your lost Victorinox® Travel Gear bag, they call our the worldwide customer service hotline number and Using your unique ID number, we will work with them to reunite you with your bag. We will notify you, arrange pickup, and then arrange for delivery of your bag -- at no cost to you!

The program is activated via a registration form in the bag.

The Swiss Tracker™ Program is available for the following travel gear products:

• Mobilizer® 24 - 30340201 / 30340203 / 30340208 models
• Deluxe Garment Mobilizer® - 30341701 /30341703 / 30341708 models
• Paratrooper - 30341801 / 30341803 / 30341808 models
• Collapsible Gear Mobilizer® - 30340401 /30340403 / 30340408 models
• Louvre 17 - 30322001 model
• Wainwright - 30321901/30323101 models
• Empire 17 - 30322101 model
• Big Ben - 30322601 model
• Parliament 17 - 30322901 model

Look for the Swiss Tracker™ Globe icon on our travel gear product pages to indicate which items offer this unique and free additional feature.