Jackie,

Your post intimated there was no Duty Free i.e. items with no duty paid but there are and travellers travelling outside the UK can still save a fortune when travelling further afield than the Med or Canaries etc. Especially when travelling to Sri Lanka, Maldives, Indian Ocean and so on where there are no resort shops to buy in.

Only EU passengers save the VAT only, which agreed at 17.5% is hardly worth bothering with.

I've just returned from Lanzarote and was paying 19EU for 200 UK brand cigarettes at the cheap cig shop in PDC which equates to approx £13.50, so £20 for 400 on the flight was indeed a saving compared to resort prices even Which will be why I suppose they ran out of almost all cigs both going out and returning

Why do they sell 400 cigs for £20 when you are only allowed to bring in 200?.

As others have said you CAN still buy duty free at UK airports, depending on where you are travelling. In June we were travelling from Aberdeen to Zurich. As Switzerland are not in the EU we could buy duty free and got an excellent deal. One litre of Grouse Whisky and one litre of Gordons Gin for £18 for the two!!! Grouse whisky alone is over £16 a bottle in Asda.

On saying that though, I think the perfumes and make up are no cheaper. In fact for the last few times of travelling I have been looking at a couple of perfumes and I bought them this week in Asda, MUCH cheaper than the airports.

On the subject of duty free shops, with the new cabin restrictions, does this mean you cannot buy alcohol anymore? We are travelling to Geneva (Switzerland) next month and would want to buy our usual tipple to take with us.

Why do they sell 400 cigs for £20 when you are only allowed to bring in 200?.

Allowance for 2 travellers or 200 going out and 200 coming back which is allowed as long as you don't bring more than 200 pp back into the UK.

All the airlines occasionally do these offers and they can be viewed on the respective websites.

Rules here
HM CUSTOMS

I have found that perfume doesn't carry much in the way of savings, but cigarettes from UK airports duty free and airline are very cheap. We too paid £24 for 400 cigarettes from Manchester (flying to Turkey, not in EU so still okay), which was cheaper than buying that particular brand in resort. I did notice prices on some of the alcohol was quite favourable but I'm not too familiar with resort prices on things like that - they seem to vary so much.

If you travel within EU then tobacco products are indeed duty free (not just VAT) because if you try to purchase them and you are flying within the EU they will not allow you.

On goods which don't carry a separate excise duty then regadless of whether you are flying to and from an EU destination or not the only saving is on the VAT and that means perfumes and electrical goods aren't usually being sold at competitive prices compared to prices on the Net or even high street stores like Superdrug. Even Boots can usually undercut the post-security shops a UK airports.

But if you are flying to a non-EU destination then you can make big savings on alcohol and tobacco because you are saving not just the VAT but a good portion of the excise duty too which makes up most of the UK price. Whenever I go to Cuba I take Scotch whisky with me for presents and people aren't that bothered about which brand it is. Last time I went in March I was able to buy two 1 litre size bottles of Bells for £15 in total - compared to the prices in my local supermarket, a litre of an internationally known Scotch for £7.50 is a bargain!

SM

I paid £32 for 100ml Ghost perfume at duty free shop in Newcastle Airport which would have cost £40+ in the likes of Boots.

Or you could have paid £29.99 at http://www.fragrancedirect.co.uk - I do not know what postage rates apply. However, it re-enforces my point that the "duty free" shops (where, as pointed out, you only "save" the VAT element other than on spirits and baccy for non-EU) are an absolute rip-off aimed at fleecing a captive and bored audience who believe they are getting a bargain when they really aren't.

if you do not believe me, select some perfumes/electrical goods/anything at random, research the prices you could pay online or in the high street and then compare to the prices in the "duty free" shops when you get to the airport. I promise that you will never shop there again!

Cheers,
Jet.

P&P appears to be £1 per item so that would make it £30.99 - so I spent £1.01 more but had it there and then to use.

Good site tho' - have saved it to my favourites if I run out of all my perfume purchases before our next hols.