Duty free tobacco,UK or USA?

abacab

Hi all
Would like to reward a friend for servicing our car whilst we are in the USA.
Would it be cheaper to get our duty free tobacco at Heathrow or San Francisco?
We are not smokers so any globetrotting smokers views would be great?

spiro

Dont know about prices but if Phatbear is around he will advise you that what you are doing is smuggling because you are giving them to someone in return for them having done something for you. Personnally it sounds like a nice thing to do.

withabix

spiro wrote: »

Dont know about prices but if Phatbear is around he will advise you that what you are doing is smuggling because you are giving them to someone in return for them having done something for you. Personnally it sounds like a nice thing to do.

Nobody is going to ask you why you are bringing 200 fags into the UK, be they for your own use or as a gift.

You get looked at more suspicisously if you AREN'T carrying any Duty Free goods!!

Due to the poor £/$ exchange rate, the cheapest price will be at Heathrow.

Meadows

If I pick up duty free I tend to buy it in UK these days. The prices seem better and they usually have the choice you want (In Canada we could only get brands we had not heard of).

Do be aware though that if you change planes on the way and have to pick up your bags you may have to put the duty free in the cases before you check the bags back in, we had to do that for our last holiday.

phatbear

spiro wrote: »

Dont know about prices but if Phatbear is around he will advise you that what you are doing is smuggling because you are giving them to someone in return for them having done something for you.

Its true its payment in kind and as such is illegal.

withabix wrote: »

Nobody is going to ask you why you are bringing 200 fags into the UK, be they for your own use or as a gift.

Also true

Meadows wrote: »

If I pick up duty free I tend to buy it in UK these days. The prices seem better and they usually have the choice you want

On our recent return from the U.S silk cut were £15 per 200 and if you bought 400 you got 200 free, so 600 cigs for £30.

Nordictat2

withabix wrote: »

Nobody is going to ask you why you are bringing 200 fags into the UK, be they for your own use or as a gift.

You get looked at more suspicisously if you AREN'T carrying any Duty Free goods!!

Due to the poor £/$ exchange rate, the cheapest price will be at Heathrow.

I agree on all 3 points

I think the customs folks have a wee bit more on their mind than wondering if a carton of smokes will be used by that passenger or not lol.

Meadows

phatbear wrote: »

On our recent return from the U.S silk cut were £15 per 200 and if you bought 400 you got 200 free, so 600 cigs for £30.

Ahh but you can only bring back 200 each! So I take it there were three adults buying the cigarettes.

M4RKM

I've just come back from New York, and at duty free, it was $30 a sleeve... This compares to £27 for the same cigarettes at Manchester. So even with the exchange rate at 1.6, I honestly think that £19 is less than £27.

M

phatbear

Meadows wrote: »

Ahh but you can only bring back 200 each! So I take it there were three adults buying the cigarettes.

Given the job me and mrs phatbear do we bought 200 each and then got in a heated discussion with the young lady at jfk explaining why we didnt want the free sleeve.

M4RKM

phatbear wrote: »

Given the job me and mrs phatbear do we bought 200 each and then got in a heated discussion with the young lady at jfk explaining why we didnt want the free sleeve.

hahahahaa.... most people would just stuff the extra one in the bag and hope for the best...

are there ANY countries in the world that let you bring loads of cigs back from anywhere?? (obv not the EU thingy), it's just when I was there, there were boxes of 5 sleeves for sale.. and i have to walk up to the solitary sleeves, and take one of them...

Going into the US, you're only allowed to take 200 in with you...

phatbear

markymoo wrote: »

hahahahaa.... most people would just stuff the extra one in the bag and hope for the best...

are there ANY countries in the world that let you bring loads of cigs back from anywhere??

And if we got caught we would lose our job and its a tad hypocritcial too.

Its EU only if you want more than 200 cigs, without paying the duty on em.