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What ways can you survive a Bag of Holding Bomb (i.e. two extra-dimensional spaces put into each other causing everyone within 10 feet to be sucked to the Astral Plane)? I will first acknowledge the fact it is generally agreed the travel itself does not cause death.

I will note the key wording of the Bag of Holding Bomb:

...opens a gate to the Astral Plane ... Any creature within 10 feet of the gate is sucked through it to a random Location on the Astral Plane. The gate then closes. The gate is one-way only and can't be reopened.

Then, of course, you are now in the very dangerous Astral Plane with whatever creature you were trying to defeat. Not ideal.

Are there any reliable strategies to either escape or not get sucked in the first place (that don't involve finding a colour pool for the Material Plane or being a level 15+ caster and having Plane Shift/Wish/etc)?

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Activate the bomb while you're more than ten feet away

For example, using a Mage Hand to activate it, or your familiar, or the "Arrow of Total Destruction".

Make yourself unable to dimensional travel

Cast hallow and bind an extra effect to it. The extra effect is "Extradimensional Interference: Affected creatures can’t move or travel using teleportation or by extradimensional or interplanar means." Make this extra effect apply to you and not your opponent.

Banish yourself home

The banishment spell says:

If the target is native to a different plane of existence than the one you're on, the target is banished with a faint popping noise, returning to its home plane. If the spell ends before 1 minute has passed, the target reappears in the space it left or in the nearest unoccupied space if that space is occupied. Otherwise, the target doesn't return.

This fourth-level spell is available to several classes including cleric and wizard (but, sadly, not druid or bard). If you have it available (including as a scroll), you can banish yourself home.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Note that you may not want to try banishing yourself back home after pulling something like this. RAW, the GM decides where you end up because the spell does not specify where on the home plane the target goes, and it’s not unusual for a GM to rule that you go to a random location, or that you end up somewhere of their choosing. Because of early-end clause this generally will not be immediately lethal, but you’ll end up back on the Astral Plane where you started, down a spell slot. \$\endgroup\$ Aug 9, 2022 at 15:54
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    \$\begingroup\$ Note that you can't choose to voluntarily fail the save, so there's actually a good chance that a Sorcerer or Paladin may have trouble banishing themselves. And you need an item that you personally find distasteful as a component, which is just kinda hilarious to me. "Why are you carrying around an evil holy symbol!?" "For emergencies!" \$\endgroup\$ Aug 11, 2022 at 21:40
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Echo Knight Shenanigans

Technically the Echo Knight's Echo is not a creature. This is stated obtusely in its description (and has been argued before on hundred topics):

This echo is a magical, translucent, gray image of you that lasts until it is destroyed, until you dismiss it as a bonus action, until you manifest another echo, or until you're incapacitated.

This means it is not sucked into the Astral Plane by the Bag of Holding bomb which specifies "any creature". Alternatively just have the echo stands a little farther away since the bomb's radius is pretty small.

The echo is also not destroyed automatically when you are sucked into the Astral Plane. This is because you have not dismissed it, you are not incapacitated and your turn is not over:

If your echo is ever more than 30 feet from you at the end of your turn, it is destroyed.

Since your echo is still in the material plane you can now use your Bonus Action to swap positions with it, "regardless of distance between the two of you". And now you are safely home.

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Word of Recall

While I think that for practical purposes Banishment is the best option, as it is lower level and is a generally useful spell to prepare even without this application, Word of Recall also works, and as a sixth level spell only requires you to be of 11th level.

You and up to five willing creatures within 5 feet of you instantly teleport to a previously designated sanctuary.

It likewise has the benefit of being generally useful.

Use Minions to trigger the bags

Alternatively, if you plan to do this as an attack, I think remote delivery is the simplest plan - use minions to deliver them and put them together, like an Unseen Servant, animated skeleton, summoned minor elemental or similar.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Reposting this from other answer - NOTE: banish only puts you back "on your native plane" - some DMs (i.e. mine) may rule that your destination is therefore random (i.e. they roll on a lat/long table and giggle as they send you into the icy waters of the North Sea as you start making rolls to resist freezing to death). \$\endgroup\$
    – order
    Aug 9, 2022 at 7:34
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    \$\begingroup\$ @order: Reposting my workaround for that: drop concentration on Banishment before the full 1 minute, if you don't like where you ended up. Then try again. \$\endgroup\$ Aug 9, 2022 at 11:54
  • \$\begingroup\$ Word of Recall says you teleport to a location, not that you cross planar borders. As a DM I certainly wouldn't allow it to be used as a plane-shift type of a spell. \$\endgroup\$
    – Negdo
    Jul 24, 2023 at 11:34
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Negdo That's certainly within your liberty as DM. Normally, teleportation spells that limit you to the same plane do so explicitly, either by providing a distance within which you can teleport which is undefined between planes (like misty step, which in addition requires sight of the target space) , or by explicitly stating it must be a target on the same plane; for example teleport says: "The destination you choose must be known to you, and it must be on the same plane of existence" Word of Recall is lacking such limiting language. \$\endgroup\$ Jul 24, 2023 at 13:20
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I suppose you might be able to have an artificer create a contraption that could seal the bag mid flight.

My idea: Use glue to attach a folded bag of holding to another bag that's been turned inside out. Artificer crafts a device that attaches to the outside of the bag (also with glue) that is turned inside out--something similar to venus fly trap, a bear trap, or a claw machine in an arcade that then closes after a short delay.

Using the spell Catapult, you could launch the bomb and be out of the way when it goes off. If you put a rock in there too, it'll still deal the bludgeoning damage from the spell as well.

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