Raffles

NO!

Because you ARE paying VAT, so it doesn't matter where you are flying, UK or EU!

It would only make a difference at airports where domestic pax are funnelled through a different terminal area and so you couldn't hit the shops.

In theory you could go airside, buy the item and then ask to be escorted out of the terminal because 'your meeting in Paris has been cancelled'.

mdj1

Thanks, that's what I thought and that's what the lady at Tiffany said. Anyone can purchase.

So back to my other question. Do I have to actually fly?

FlyerTalker6245

You could just phone the shop (number is here http://www.heathrowairport.com/shop%...Tiffany+%26+Co.) - I once phoned Dixons at Edinburgh and got straight through and got the answers I wanted.

Let us know how you get on!

Word questions along the lines of:

I am about to fly domestically to Manchester, can I buy things from you and what are the prices?

Raffles

No. But you obviously need to buy a ticket FOR A UK OR EU DESTINATION and will need to make an excuse to the airport people as to why you need to go back landside. You cannot simply join a queue of arriving passengers because there is full segregation of arriving and departing pax at Heathrow, so you have to be escorted landside by an official. However, many people do this every day for one reason or another, especially when flights are delayed / cancelled or your plans change.

Make sure you get a BAA WorldPoints card if you don't already have one, since this transaction will earn you a very nice pile of Avios / Miles & More / Diamond Club miles on top.

One other note if doing this. Some shops at Heathrow break the law by 'mistakenly' typing in the wrong destination to the computer when you buy something. You show them a boarding pass to Manchester and they 'mistakenly' type in the code for Barbados, thus allowing the shop to avoid passing any VAT to Customs & Excise. Whilst this is not an issue normally, it is a big issue for you because Customs may want to look at your receipts before escorting you back landside. You must therefore double-check your receipt from Tiffany and make sure they have put in a UK or EU destination, and thus paid the VAT.

mdj1

Thanks raffles.

Flight booked. 2250 Avios and £38.50!

Didn't think of the world points! I don't have a card. Can I get one in the terminal somewhere?

continentalclub

I believe that you can, from the information points, as long as they have leaflets available.

Alternatively, join instantly online at:

https://www.baaworldpoints.com/NewRegistration.aspx

And, as Raffles says, do make sure that the correct EU flight number is entered on your receipt.

bwaflyer

A bit off topic, but if you needed to do some 'shopping' in Terminal 1, purchase a UK or Eire ticket, shop in the departure lounge, go through the photo/boarding pass check, and turn left off to domestic baggage reclaim and out to arrivals.

clubman

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

Indeed T1 is very easy in terms of going buck
Landslide with no escort necessary.

mdj1

Thanks for all the help guys. Got to t5 straight through fast track, not one person in the queue, and downstairs within 4 or 5 minutes of parking the car. Bit of a mix up at tiffanys as one of the rings was the wrong size, but luckily they had one at t3 the right size, the sales assistant went over there on the bus to get it for me, so great service from them. Popped up to galleries and had a bite to eat, the beef bourguignon was lovely. Popped back down to world duty free to use my £20 of amex vouchers, a couple of bottles of jack and a LP rose for nye.

Then I got a call from tiffanys, tried to pay with my new lloyds avios, that was fun, details in the lloyds thread. All sorted in the end, got excited when I logged onto world points website, promo 15,000 bonus points on jewellery purchase, listed pretty much every outlet except tiffanys, so missed out there.

Had to wait 25 minutes for someone to take me downstairs to come back through Immigration and luckily got there just before what looked like half a dozen jumbos had just landed judging by the crowds coming towards me.

All in all a successful evening out!

golfmad

It all sounds a bit silly to me.

mdj1

What sounds silly?

The saving of nearly a £1000 on the high street price?

golfmad

I thought the idea was a bit daft on several levels.

Paying money for a ticket and using Avios to get into the airport to go shopping, go to the lounge and consume stuff (there was a previous thread on this), use up a seat on an aircraft, possibly delay its departure, make some excuse and get escorted out.

Not to mention the idea of purchasing jewellery in the first place although my wife would disagree I'm sure.

Other than all that, it only looked like a £248 saving from your numbers.

£3,227 less £2,979 equals £248 not £1,000?

mdj1

Your numbers are wrong as the US price is the current price and I won't be in NY until the middle of Feb, Tiffany's have a 10 - 20% price increase on the cards for the middle of Jan.

So the saving was £596 on the one ring plus my wedding band another couple of hundred so £800 on those two items alone, that's before the price increase.

And at least I paid for my ticket and didn't buy a fully refundable ticket and then just claim it back.

Your entitled to your opinion, but for a couple of hours out of my evening I've managed to save myself nearly £1000, sort out an important part of our wedding and picked up the best part of 55,000 avios in the process.

And as for the lounge access, i'm sure it didn't cost BA as much for a small plate of beef and rice and one of their mini cans of coke as it did for my ticket. Plus BAA made some money out of me from my purchases in World Duty Free.

I told customer services that I wasn't flying long before the gate closed so there was no chance of the flight being delayed and I didn't have any baggage so it's not like they had to unload me.

And like I said, your entitled to your opinion, but to just post "It all sounds a bit silly to me" is "just sounds childish to me"

meester69

Isn't there another thread about this? The ticket was paid for, BA made a nice profit on £1.50 worth of beef bourgignon, Tiffany made a handsome profit on their overpriced jewellery, the OP got his overpriced jewellery a little cheaper, and everyone's a winner basically.

I'd rather do what this OP did then venture into the revolting hellhole that is Oxford Street at this time of year.

Well clearly there are massive margins on these items, which would personally put me off ever buying anything in Tiffanys.

plus a ticket to New York.

The saving appears to be around £600 all the same.

golfmad

The information you posted about prices in the original post was far from complete and includes quite a lot of speculation about potential price increases. I'm delighted you're happy with the outcome, it's just not the route I'd have taken.

Good luck and congratulations on the forthcoming wedding.