Not sure but maybe this should be in the Travel Forum.

I've had a pair of Bose QuietComfort 2 headphones for about 5 years. I recently flew to the US and noticed that the leather (or whatever) on the ear cushions had started to flake off. It was like having black dandruff. Even though I've owned them a while I have not used them much, maybe on a dozen international trips or so.

According to Bose support the flaking is due to the environment they have been kept in. I keep them in in their case inside a piece of luggage in a closet in my house in Chiang Mai. The closet is not air conditioned but it's not that hot so I was wondering if it could be the humidity.

Another possible environmental thing I noticed is that elastic bands inside some of my clothing in my closet becomes brittle over time. I never noticed anything like this back in the San Francisco Bay Area.

When I called Bose to order the ear cushion replacements for 35 USD they told me about their trade in policy. For 99 USD you can trade in your old QuietComfort headphones for the new QuietComfort 15 headphones. Bose emails a free UPS shipping label to use to return you old headphones. All you have to return is the headphones, the case, and the cable. You can keep any other accessories including the adaptor and the case strap. They mentioned that the new case does not have a strap but I never used the strap anyway.

I opted for the trade in as it seems to be a pretty good deal. The noise canceling technology is supposed to be much improved. Bose pays for all shipping but you have to pay tax so my bill was about 107 USD. As I was prepared to buy new ear cushions I only paid about 70 USD more. In any case it sure beats paying 300 USD for new headphones.

Maybe in the future I will keep the headphones case inside a ziplock plastic bag when I am at home in Thailand.

I am not surprised by your problems, the Thai climate is a killer for all sorts of materials.

I have found the rubber suspension rings on my speakers rotting,

the feet on the bottom of my CD player just melted...........

This is probably the longest topic I have read in all these years... but informative.

Headphones...will look into what Bose has to offer. And which alternatives there are here in CM.

And store them in a zip-lock!

There is a reason they make replacement pieces. I have the same headphones and used them in a relatively low humidity climate for 3+ years and the rubberised earpieces flaked. They add a ruber coating to fabric and I think that over time you will have this issue.

However, I didn't know they had a trade in, that would have been cool. I replaced my ear pieces from the Bose site and I used the headhones maybe 2 roundtrips a year (for about 60 hours of flight total) but I would have liked to upgrade. bummer, no reason to do it now that the ear pieces are replaced.

I have the 3's and the 15's, both very good, I also replaced the earpads from Bose on the 3's, you'll probably also get the headband covering go flaky too.

One thing about the 15's on a long flight is sweaty ears being they are completely closed, noise cancelling is better than the 3's though, but the 3's are very good also.

Last International flight I took , I used the 3's instead of the 15's.