In order to have the maximum flexibility with last-minute cancellations and flight changes, I’ve always carried on my luggage, even for 10-day business trips to Asia.

I’ve tried all sorts of suitcases with my goal being to carry on as much as possible while meeting the airline guidelines.

I had been using a Tumi 22-inch roller board for many years. Tumi came with a “lifetime” warranty, but when its lifetime was up, the company told me they could not repair the shredding lower corners because they no longer stocked the parts.

They offered me a 30 percent discount on a similar case listing for $600. As much as I like Tumi products, that was just too much to swallow.

I could have bought a Kirkland-branded roller board from Costco that’s remarkably similar to the Tumi for about $100, but I came across an intriguing new line of lightweight luggage from Eagle Creek called Hovercraft.

The 22-inch roller version cost $200. Eagle Creek products have always impressed me as being well-designed and good values.

Unlike the conventional designs from Tumi, Costco, and most others (essentially a rigid box) the Hovercraft 22 has flexible sides and a flexible convex front. It also has a deep vertical pocket on the front that’s large enough to hold a four-inch stack of reading material, and a wide shallow, quick-access pocket at the top handy for retrieving your permitted liquids at airport security. Its flexibility has let me stuff in lots more than the rigid box design.

It’s a contemporary design that seems to have been designed by real travelers with attention to detail. It even has a reflective stripe on the front for nighttime visibility.

The case is designed to perfectly fit the Eagle Creek folders and cubes that organize and compress your clothes and other items. I bought two tube bags that span the width, one for chargers, cables and other electronics and the other for snacks. I also added two Pack-It cubes and two folders for my other clothes and a Pack-It Compression Sac (a plastic bag for holding your dirty clothes, compressing them to 20 percent of normal volume).

So this has become my current solution for packing as much as possible: I compress my clothes to the smallest possible volume, stacking them neatly in the individual containers and use a suitcase that can expand as much as possible.

The HoverCraft 22 seems like an excellent value; we’ll have to see how well it wears, but it does come with a lifetime warranty.

Hopefully they won’t run out of parts.

By Phil Baker for PeterGreenberg.com. Phil Baker has developed consumer and computer products for Polaroid, Apple, Seiko and others, traveling millions of miles doing it. He holds 30 patents, was San Diego’s Entrepreneur of the Year and writes a weekly technology column for the San Diego Transcript at www.sddt.com/phil. Read Phil’s blog at http://blog.philipgbaker.com.

Want more information on tech? Don’t miss our section on travel gadgets.

Also by Phil Baker:

Travel Assistance On Your Smartphone