Sources
Everything behind the numbers on this site, with the part most sites leave out: whether we actually opened it.
We got this wrong once. A figure about gate-agent commissions was credited to a congressional report, marked verified, and quoted — all from a search result summary, and the quote turned out not to be in the document. The register exists so that is visible rather than repeatable.
Manufacturers
Where a dimension can be recommended on, it comes from here — the manufacturer's own figure, wheels and handle included.
Publishes dimensions: BOTH packing and with-wheels
Bags designed for European travel, sold direct. Barely covered by the US review circuit, which is why they appear in none of the four roundups.
Still a manufacturer and still self-reported. The with-wheels figure is a claim to verify, not a measurement to adopt. Its value is that publishing both numbers makes the claim falsifiable in a way a single spec number never is.
Publishes dimensions: BOTH case and overall
Tier 3 and self-reported. They also state the range is 'sizer-bin tested' on major US carriers, which is a testing claim we cannot verify.
Review publications
We cite these for quality — durability, wheels, how a bag survives two years. We don't assess any of that, and they test it properly. Where they publish a dimension we use it only until we find the manufacturer's own.
Two of these publish no dimensions at all, in roundups titled for international travel. That absence is why this site exists.
Airlines
83 of 83 airlines have had their published baggage page read at source and dated. The rest are listed but excluded from every count until someone reads them.