Best, Cheapest Luggage, and How Not to Lose it at Baggage Claim
Luggage generally costs somewhere between a lot and way too much, but there are less expensive options if you're not elitist about it. You need fair quality, want decent looks and from there you want to be able to recognize it when it rolls off the carousel. This covers all those bases.
Cheap, good quality luggage is best had at Wal-Mart. You can get it online easy as pie, but go in person if you can, so you'll know exactly what you're getting. For under $100 you can get a full set of high quality luggage that will last you many trips to come.
The looks are fair to good, but very common. At least you know it's popular, but when it comes to figuring out which one's yours at baggage claim, add some kind of marking to it, and I don't mean a luggage tag. You definitely should have a good, sturdy, permanent luggage tag, whether you print it at home and laminate it at Kinkos, or find another way, but for marking you need more than that.
One guy I saw used color-coded ribbons on the handles. That's pretty good, but even better I saw a couple who had spray painted a stencil of a tree with safety orange paint. No mistaking that bag, not from any distance, you know it's yours, and it doesn't devalue it any, since luggage isn't about the resale value.
