Originally Posted by
plunet
This going to annoy high end retailers in major shopping centres, as well as the airports. Even places like Bicester Village are going to be to hugely impacted when travel restarts - visitors are going to go shopping in the rest of Europe, not the UK.
I agree. It seems that most of the "tax free" places have a commission, so in reality a shopper only gets about 10% back, not 20%.
However, the last time I left LHR the person in front of me at the VAT reclaim counter was getting a refund of £10,000. He wanted it in cash and they actually ran out of money and had to get more for him. So that means he must have spent at least £100,000 on goods he was exporting. I was not getting anywhere near that amount back...