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Outlasting the annoyance economy

It just popped off. As my husband picked it up, the handle on my beloved, buy-it-for-life carry-on suitcase flew right off.

She (my bag) was only three years old, in great condition (or so I'd thought), from a reputable brand, and had never even been checked at an airport. Yet my plans to travel with this $300 bag for decades had disappeared as quickly as the handle.

Before all hope was lost, I remembered the product warranty I'd registered for. Armed with photos of the damage and my receipt, I eventually tracked down and filled out the (very thorough) customer-support form.

After two days, and some back-and-forth, a nameless customer-support entity declared that my bag wasn't covered by a special plan that had expired, sent me a long list of reasons as to why they wouldn't help me even if it was, and offered me a 15% off coupon.

I wasn't letting this company off the hook so easily. After several minutes of deep-diving on the company website, I was confident that my suitcase should be covered by its lifetime warranty. I sent a detailed email in response, complete with screenshots from the company's own website as proof that my bag should be repaired or replaced on their dime.

Within a few hours, I had received an email from a manager (with a name) and the shipping details for my brand-new replacement suitcase.

I'd won, but I'd suffered through America's annoyance economy to do it, spending my lunch break playing lawyer and collecting evidence, hoping a real person would answer me.

As BI's Juliana Kaplan recently wrote, there's big money in companies exhausting and frustrating their consumers. If it takes a lot of time, mental energy, and verbal fights with unhelpful customer-service bots to cancel a subscription, make a return, or, in my case, have a warranty honored … the companies win.

I can't imagine how many others in my position just believed they had no path forward and accepted the measly coupon as a consolation prize.

As for the old suitcase? I'm looking into getting it repaired. In this economy, I'm not letting a $300 bag go to waste.