A friend wanted some fancy fragrance recently and was going to buy it in the store locally. I figured this was my chance to finally use the duty free and 15% discount for something productive so I whipped out my phone and looked up Air Canada's buy-on-board duty-free price for the same fragrance.

For 50ml after applying the 15% discount and converting currency it worked out to 45Euro. The price in the store *including 17% tax* was 60Euro for a 100ml bottle. Admittedly it was on sale in the store but still, if it's 50% more expensive now than a random retail store in a shopping centre with a 17% tax I can't imagine it's ever really a good deal compared to shopping around online.

Just for comparison I just searched online. Kmart has the 100ml bottle of the same fragrance for $85USD regular price and it's on sale for $68USD. That's 65Euro regularly and 52Euro on special.

I give up. I always assumed the duty-free prices were only marginally better than stores with the airline or duty-free store soaking most of the duty and tax savings but it seems they're actually not even that good.

Does anyone have any examples of goods that are actually good deals? I've never used my elite duty free coupons or the 10-15% discount at all because I've never found anything worth buying.