Why Duty Free often ISN’T a real deal
LAST WEEK, I jetted off to cloudier climes via Heathrow and, while waiting for my plane, I made a bee-line for the duty Free.
Picking up a bargain at the airport has always been one of the perks of air travel and I usually try to buy some of the pricier cosmetics I like in the duty-Free shop to save money.
But this time, after nabbing a pot of Bobbi Brown’s Vitaminenriched Face Base (50ml), I was taken aback by the price.
It was still a surprisingly steep £38 (the RRP is £46.50) and I had really expected it to be cheaper. When I landed, I checked out the product online and found that I could have just ordered it from boots.com for £34.87.
And that got me thinking. Is it still worth bothering with duty Free?
Well, according to the price and product comparison site PriceSpy it seems that, on the whole, it isn’t any more.
The website reviewed 324 products in duty-Free stores across three airports in seven product categories and found a huge 74 per cent of items were actually cheaper online, with shoppers able to save up to 14 per cent by buying online rather than at the airport. In hard cash, that’s an average saving of £7.10 per purchase.
If you are thinking of treating yourself to discounted designer sunglasses in the duty-Free shop this summer, think again. The research, carried out in May, found that you will make an average saving of 20 per cent if you buy the same sunnies from a website rather than at the airport.
For example, Ray-Ban RB3025 Aviators are £121.65 duty Free but £75.50 online, saving you 37.9 per cent.
You won’t have the luxury of trying on lots of different pairs in front of a mirror like you do at the airport if you buy online, so you need to know what you want — or take the time to try several pairs on at home and send back the ones you don’t want. But there’s no doubt there are better savings to be had.
Many toiletries are also cheaper online than they are in the duty
Free shops. one example is the Hugo Boss Bottle deodorant Stick, 75ml, which would set you back £ 18.50 duty Free, but online, you could find it 40 per cent cheaper at £10.95.
Even watches are often better value online, with an average saving of 4 per cent. That may not sound much, but given the pricey designer watches you find at duty Free, a 4 per cent saving can make quite a difference.
The biggest saving in the study was on the diesel Mr daddy 2.0 dZ7312, which averages £275.75 duty Free, but is an impressive £146.87 cheaper online.
It’s not just the online outlets that often beat the duty-Free store prices either. one of my MoneyMagpie team found that even a massive Toblerone, that symbol of airport shops, is actually cheaper in her local supermarket.
She found that the 360g bar is £6.50 at the airport while you can pick it up for a fiver at Sainsbury’s and Tesco. She was also disappointed to find that a 50ml bottle of Emporio Armani diamonds fragrance for men was £ 39.50 at the airport but £32.50 at Boots. There are still a few bargains to be had in duty Free. The PriceSpy study found that 26 per cent of products reviewed were either the same or cheaper at the duty-Free shops as they were online, particularly when it came to perfumes and make-up. Estee Lauder dream dusk eau de parfum 100ml cost £105.80 at the airport while the cheapest price online was £130. Tom Ford Eye Color Quad 10g cost £56.65 airside compared with the cheapest price online of £67.85, and GHd Max Styler hair straighteners cost £149.15 at the duty Free while the cheapest price online was £169. Meanwhile, we found that a 70cl bottle of Bombay Sapphire Gin is £20.99 at the airport, a pound cheaper than the £22 it costs at a supermarket.
What I would suggest is that if you are planning on buying something specific at the airport to save money, research it online before you get there.
use comparison sites like PriceSpy, Kelkoo or Idealo as well as Amazon and even eBay to see what the best price would be online, and then see if the duty-Free section can better it when you get to the airport.
oh, and just to clarify the boarding pass issue: when you buy from the duty-Free shops you do need to show your boarding pass so they can reclaim the VAT on the items you have bought.
However, in the other non-duty Free shops in the airport (Boots, WHSmith etc) you don’t have to show your boarding pass. If they ask for it you can just politely refuse as it simply allows them to reclaim VAT charged on the goods you buy, a saving which they have not passed on to you.
You do get the VAT removed at the duty- Free shops so it’s mandatory to hand over your boarding pass to the staff at the counters there.