[pushkins]

When purchasing laminate flooring the 1st thing you should be looking for is the "wear layer" this will be given in...."mil".

Basically there are two tyes of laminate floors.
1. Engineered>>>> very thin slither of a wood product glued to the surface of the floor planks. This is actually wood and in some cases can be thick enough that should the floor require repairing or refinishing at some time down the track it can be done by a very light sanding.

and

2. Photolamination>>> to explain this simply, they take a extremely high quality picture of a finished floor, for example, wide plank Brazillian hardwood, they may capture an area 3 planks wide and 3 feet long, this is then reproduced and and attached to the laminate flooring planks. (this is why this style of laminate flooring every piece is exactly the same.
So in basic terms with this style of laminate floor you have a piece of wood with a very high quality photo glued to the face and therefore cannot ever be repaired or refinished. The "wear layer" with these floors is more often the thickness of the protective sealing layers of film applied over the finished product.

Another thing you want to think about is in what area you want to use this floor, if your using it in a high traffic area with definite traffic paths, like hallways (everyone walks down the center) or doorways (again 99% of he wear is right in the middle) then you might want to consider a thicker "wear layer" floor.

Funny thing is from time to time "Sams club" actually have some good laminate flooring at good prices, but remeber your big box stores will more often than not compete with them even if it is branded differently.