Duty free allowance if transiting in KUL
 

According to the Singapore Customs website...
When they say "You have not arrived from Malaysia", do transits count?

If for example, I'm flying ICN-KUL-SIN, then am I no longer entitled to any duty free allowance anymore? Even though I'm actually coming from Seoul and just stopping over in KL?

As long as it's a single ticket, you'll be fine. This rule isn't really enforced to any meaningful degree at Changi anyway, it's the land borders where they keep an eagle eye out for booze and cigarettes.

Actually, it is. If your flight number registers as originating from Malaysia, the system will reject you and you will not be allowed to purchase duty free booze.

But this probably does not apply for stopover flights like the OPs, though I haven't tried. If your boarding pass says ICN-SIN you should be okay. But if you have a separate boarding pass for KUL-SIN then you may be out of luck.

That may well be the case if you try to buy your booze at SIN duty free on arrival, but I presume the OP was asking about bringing in alcohol bought elsewhere.

Dang... I'm actually ticketed separately for my two sectors ICN-KUL & KUL-SIN... so in that case, nothing I say (or even showing my ICN-KUL boarding pass) would help since the system would block it?
Oh well, I guess thats one reason why one should avoid transits in KUL then...

Should I then try to make my duty free purchases at ICN or KUL? (duty-free stores at departure halls are usually cheaper than the ones at arrival anyway) Or will they get confiscated? Or will I have to pay the tax? (IIRC, Singapore has some pretty expensive tax on alcohol)

anyway, thanks for the replies guys!

I've got a somewhat different view. When Singapore Customs says having arrived from Malaysia, I think they actually mean that you legally entered Malaysia (ie gone through Malaysian passport control and customs, and ended up on the groundside at KUL all set to take a cab or the train to KL). That's not you as long as you stay airside; for them to try and tax you on this, Sing Customs would be looking for Malaysia entry and exit stamps in your passport which I suspect you won't have. But why go through all this handwringing? I'd just ask Sing Customs. There's a bunch of emails addresses you can try, this is the one for the customs checkpoints at various ports of entry: [email protected]
I found it on this page: http://www.customs.gov.sg/mis/con/

Where to buy? You know what, I have no idea if you're better off purchasing in KUL or SEL. If I'm right, you might even consider buying from SIN duty free. Be aware that the limits on alcohol have been liberalized recently. In the past it was one litre each of wine, beer, and hard liquor. However they have loosened by allowing you to swap the litre of hard stuff for an additional litre of either wine OR beer (ie you still can't bring in more than a total of three litres of alcoholic beverages duty free). The link is

http://www.customs.gov.sg/leftNav/tr...oncessions.htm

Finally, I doubt they would confiscate sensible amounts of booze; I suspect they'd rather collect the duty and any fines instead.

"The system" only applies to trying to buy from SIN duty free, since they scan your boarding pass. No relation to Customs.

Not sure which is cheaper, but I'd just go for it. As dsgtc0408 says, you're probably legally in the clear. Even if you get stopped at Customs (which has happened to me around twice in 200+ arrivals), it usually just means saying you've got a litre of Johnnie Walker or whatever and passing your bags through the X-ray; they won't even ask for your passport or boarding pass unless they find enough to stock a bar or a kilo of heroin in there. And if you do get questioned, explaining that you just connected through KL should be more than sufficient.

Showing your ICN-KUL boarding pass to the duty free sales clerk in SIN will be sufficient. They can add a transit sector to the sales computer which allows them to sell duty free for those transiting KUL to SIN. I've done this a couple of times.