Using your case
How the lock works, how to set your own combination, and how to look after a case that is built to outlast the reason you bought it.
A case, a box, and very little else.
Inside the outer carton the case sits in a bed of fitted foam cut to its exact dimensions, with the lock's paperwork alongside it. Nothing rattles, and there is nothing to assemble.
Keep the box. It is what protects the case if it ever travels back to us, for a repair or because you changed your mind, and a case returned without it cannot be sold again as new. The Refund Policy explains what that means for a refund.
A TSA JS-621, and the reason you can fly with the case locked.
Every case carries a Travel Sentry approved combination lock, marked TSA 007. Three dials, a release that presses straight down, and in it a keyhole that is not for you.
It leaves the factory set to 0 0 0. That is not a secret, it is a starting point, and changing it is the first thing worth doing with a new case.
Set your three numbers so they read straight in the windows, then press the release downwards with your thumb. The catch springs and the case opens.
To lock it, close the case, press the catch until it clicks, and turn the dials off your numbers. That last part is the one people forget, and a lock left standing on its own combination is a lock in name only.
To open. Turn the dials until your numbers stand in the windows, then press the button with the keyhole straight down.
To lock. Close the case, press the catch shut, and turn the dials off your numbers. A lock left standing on its own combination is not locked.
Four moves, done once, with the case open in front of you.
Do this at a table rather than at a departure gate, and do it with the case open. The reset switch sits on the back of the lock, which means you can only reach it from the inside.
01
Open the case and set the dials to the combination the lock is on. From new that is 0 0 0.
02
On the back of the lock, inside the case, slide the reset switch from OFF to SET.
03
Turn the dials to the three numbers you want. Anything from 000 to 999, and nothing is committed yet.
04
Slide the switch back from SET to OFF. The combination is saved, and the old one is gone.
There is no override we can give you over the telephone and no code we hold on file. The lock was built that way deliberately.
What works is patience. Set the first two dials to 0 and 0, press gently on the release, and run the third dial from 0 to 9. Then move the second dial on by one and do it again. A thousand combinations sounds like a great many, and it takes about twenty minutes.
If you would rather not, write to hello@poshposh.dk. Where patience fails, a locksmith can release a lock of this type without harming the shell, and we will tell you exactly what to ask for.
Inspected rather than cut open.
The small red and white mark on the lock is Travel Sentry. It means security authorities in the United States and a number of other countries hold a master key that opens the lock for inspection and closes it again afterwards.
The alternative, for a locked case without that mark, is that the lock is cut off. So the mark is not a weakness in the case. It is the difference between a case that is inspected and a case that is opened with a tool.
Nobody else holds that key and it is not sold. Everywhere else in the world the lock behaves as an ordinary combination lock.
The wheels are sealed 360° spinner units and they ask almost nothing of you. Grit is what finishes a wheel, so if the case has been through sand or road salt, run a damp cloth around the housings when you get home.
Lift the case up a kerb rather than dragging it over one. A wheel that fails through a fault is covered by the warranty. A wheel that has been destroyed is not.
A damp cloth, and nothing clever.
Wipe the shell with a soft cloth and warm water. For a mark that will not shift, a drop of mild washing-up liquid on the cloth is as far as you need to go, then dry it off.
Do not use solvents, acetone, oven cleaner, scouring pads or anything abrasive. Anodised aluminium carries a thin surface layer that does the protecting, and those things take it off.
The scratches and small dents are not dirt and they will not polish out. They are the material behaving exactly as it should, and they are the reason the case will outlast a plastic one.
Weight low and over the wheels, softer things on top. A case packed heavy at the top pulls away from you on a turn and puts the strain into the handle rather than the frame.
Aluminium does not stretch. Pack it to close comfortably rather than forcing it, because everything you force ends up on the frame and the catches.
Take the old baggage tags off before you check it in. More cases go astray through a stale barcode than through anything else.
Lock it, and turn the dials off your numbers. If the case is inspected in the United States you may find a note inside saying so, which is the system working rather than a problem.
If the case comes off the belt damaged, report it at the airport before you leave, keep the baggage tag and the report reference, and photograph the case where it stands. Then write to us. Airline damage is not a fault in the case, so it sits outside the warranty, but we help you claim it and the Warranty page sets out how.
Store it dry, empty and unlocked, with the dials left standing anywhere but on your combination. If you stack cases, the heavy one goes at the bottom.
A case does not need to live in its box between trips. It does need somewhere it will not be leant on.
Write to hello@poshposh.dk with your order number, a description of the fault and a photograph where you can take one. We answer within five working days.
Every case is covered by the two-year statutory warranty, and where it has to come to us we pay the postage in both directions. The Warranty page has the full terms.