Originally Posted by
Speedbird876
Like others have said, it's when buying newspapers or a bottle of water that it's annoying to have to show boarding passes.
Boots does not require boarding passes for water, and will accept verbal declaration of flight number in lieu of your boarding pass.
Originally Posted by
NormanRasputin
I would recommend politely declining to produce the BP and telling them the flight number, has anyone doing this ever had the shop assistant refuse to sell? Didn't think so.
Yes I have. I bought random chocolates at DUB and the saleswoman asked for my boarding pass. I said "my flight number is EIwhatever" and she said "I still need your boarding pass".
For the rest: isn't life a bit too short to get hot under the collar about boarding pass scans? The retailer is still bound by the Data Protection Act not to use the data for inappropriate purposes, and it doesn't exactly take that long. Training the cashiers to ask "do you intend to export the purchase", "are you on a non-EU flight", etc. would take far longer and also result in confusion and delays for passengers who don't speak much/any English.