jackal

A friend and I are passing through Dubai next week on our way home from South Africa. We've got five days in Dubai en route to the USA.

We're in the midst of some pretty incredible wine tasting here, and we'd like to know how difficult and expensive it will be to bring some of the fruits of our labor home with us.

I understand the UAE allows 4L duty free, but I am having some difficulty figuring out what the duty rates for exceeding that allowance are.

If it's a reasonable cost per bottle, then we'd be looking to bring about a case (12-pack) home with us. If it's on the order of $20+ per bottle, then it becomes a better deal to simply ship them home directly from South Africa, which is of course not ideal.

Alternatively, would it be possible to arrange something either with EK or DXB customs to hold a case of wine in transit during our stopover? As we are flying F, perhaps they may be willing to make special arrangements in this manner. If so, who would we go about contacting to arrange something like this?

Thanks in advance!

MSPeconomist

Are you're sure that ANY wine is allowed without a drinking license that's available only to Dubai or UAE residents? I would assume that the answer is zero with potential tough penalties for trying.

jackal

OK, I just called DXB customs and it was confirmed that for personal use, only 4L is allowed and any more is not accepted at all. (If you have a license, it's 100% duty.)

Sounds like we're down to having EK (or customs, though that's not likely) hold the wine for us in transit. We've had some airlines and customs entities offer to do this before, but I'm not hopeful here. :/

MSPeconomist

Can you just have the wineries ship the wine to you?

m3red

You can have 5 bottles each max. End of story.

Other than that ship it or drink it before you come back.

I did the same as you and I live here - you can chance bringing more ie in your suitcases but if you get caught they will take the excess off you.

jackal

As I mentioned, they're wanting to charge $250 per case. Given cost and limits, I'd also prefer to bring home a sampling from several different wineries.

Thanks for confirming.

A quick check of EK Air Cargo seems to indicate a 50-pound box the size of a wine shipper is only about $90 to ship, which is in the realm of reason. I'm not sure if it is permissible to ship wine in this manner or if wine is charged a different rate, so I'm working this now and will make a few phone calls. I don't suppose they'll care that I'm flying EK F and give me a break on the rate.

Perhaps SA would be even cheaper to ship with as they have nonstop flights to the US, though like passenger tickets, I suspect it's by zone and not actual flight distance...

extramileage

OP - I would caution to ship wine through dubai given that the current daily temperature is 35C.

Unless it's a temp controlled container (and that will surely be extra) you risk to ruin your wine.

As noted above - yes, you can bring in 5 bottles of wine per person no problem. But remember that you'll most likely need to check the wine in your luggage on departure.

whimike

Change that 12-pack to a 10-pack and you are good.

jackal

We were thinking more along the lines of a 12-pack case each.

Coincidentally, the DXB customs folks replied to my email this morning (which I had sent to them before I posted here). They said that anything above the duty-free limit would be charged a duty of 50%. (Since even near-top-quality wines here are sub-$30 and many sub-$20, that's still exceptionally reasonable.) I replied to confirm that this applied to personal import limits for personal consumption and a reply was then sent to me in the affirmative.

I believe the fine folks here much more than some outsourced email contact center, but I thought it was interesting that their reply so starkly contradicted what their phone representative said and what has been posted here.

Are you trying to say something here?

m3red

How are you bringing the wines in?

If you bring them in they will take them off you. What you have to understand about dubai and the region is you will not have an easy time getting the correct answer and people will provide you with inconsistent advice.

My advice is either ship the wine home and pay the duty there or bring 5 bottles each.

You are lucky you don't live here, we pay a lot of money for wine in dubai from Les clos at the airport and I would never dream of going over the allowance these days.

Re AS there are a lot of people who are *viewed* as having earned miles on AS relatively easily and use them for long haul f flights which upsets skywards members due to taking up availability and also how hard it is for eK members to earn miles. This is not helped by the frequent postings from as flyers asking to spend 1/2 days in an airport lounge because they can't afford a hotel!

*obvouisly not all

edy4eva

Have to agree with m3red, there's a good chance if the many wine bottles are brought in all excess will be removed. The issue isn't customs/taxes as much it's to do with restrictions on alcohol in general.

And even if they go the duty way, the value of goods may be estimated and not based on the actual invoice/receipts. So it's not just the risk of losing more than half of the bottles, but also the risk of having to fork out hundreds of dollars on something that could be easily avoided.

m3red

You can't bring in more than 10.

I'm out with the les clos guys tonight at dinner - I wil ask them and report back.

jackal

Checked luggage in a shipper box, so not at all hidden, though I might be able to cram a 6-pack shipper box into a spare duffel bag I had tucked in my suitcase--but not a 12-pack shipper. So it's not like we'd be able to sneak through--and not that I'd attempt that.

It's not the end of the world, though. We've already resolved to return to South Africa soon, and we won't be so foolish as to fly EK with a stopover in DXB on the return.

The 200,000 miles round-trip required to redeem an EK F redemption is as much as an MVP Gold 75K-level (top-tier) flyer earns in a full year of flying. That represents several thousand dollars of cash outlay at a very minimum and given Alaska's often high fares, usually much more--and on Alaska's short flights on its limited route network, that's a lot of BIS time, and it's harder to earn that number of miles on partners with the increasing number of non-100%-earning fares. So it's hardly "free."

To be fair, the prime consideration in the (fairly short) other thread for visiting the lounge the night before was to enjoy the lounge's amenities in a way that isn't possible with an 8am departure. I don't think the postings on that topic are nearly as "frequent" as you say they are.

m3red

It's 10 bottles max otherwise you run the risk of the excess being taken off you. That's the comments from the dubai wine merchants last night!

jackal

Thanks--appreciate the report! Four days left to consume five extra bottles or toss them (or leave them for the housekeeping staff). Cheer us on!