Liquids in hold luggage ?

vacheron

Also worth mentioning that there are duty free customs limits per person if the liquids are alcoholic and you are travelling from outside the EU.

Specifically:

16 litres of beer
4 litres of wine
1 litre of spirits over 22%

Obviously you can take more than this but you would have to go through the red channel to declare them on entry and pay any VAT and duty due.

Pollycat

I take my own suncream and shower gel - I like certain brands.
I wrap in plastic bags, they've always been fine.

It really depends what sort of liquids you are talking about and what sort/how robust the containers are.

Gloomendoom

It's not just liquids that need to be well wrapped. A couple of years ago, ignorant of hold air pressure variations and unbeknown to me, my wife shoved a pot of curry powder into my hold bag at the last minute.

Needless to say, it burst during the flight and I spent the next two weeks walking around smelling like a Coventry corner shop.

gettingtheresometime

vacheron wrote: »

Also worth mentioning that there are duty free customs limits per person if the liquids are alcoholic and you are travelling from outside the EU.

Specifically:

16 litres of beer
4 litres of wine
1 litre of spirits over 22%

Obviously you can take more than this but you would have to go through the red channel to declare them on entry and pay any VAT and duty due.

I have to be honest I've walked through the green channel customs at various points of the day and at various airports and have never seen an official, let alone a random search.


I should add I'm not condoning any law breaking!

Pollycat

gettingtheresometime wrote: »

I have to be honest I've walked through the green channel customs at various points of the day and at various airports and have never seen an official, let alone a random search.


I should add I'm not condoning any law breaking!

I was stopped at LGW by Customs returning from a long haul flight as I exited through the green channel.

Searched my hold and hand luggage.
Found nothing untoward - there wasn't anything to find.

vacheron

gettingtheresometime wrote: »

I have to be honest I've walked through the green channel customs at various points of the day and at various airports and have never seen an official, let alone a random search.


I should add I'm not condoning any law breaking!

That has been my experience too. Never ever been stopped in the green channel.

My best customs story is when myself and 5 friends were travelling back from Geneva to Exeter airport in 2004. The stewardesses were selling amazingly cheap cigarettes way in excess of the duty free limits to all of us.

When I asked how they could do this she replied with a smile "well, they are more guidelines really" you'll see when you land.

Lo and behold when we landed the whole customs area was half way through renovations and completely abandoned. You couldn't have declared anything to anyone if you had tried!

IIRC, the customs search desk at the time amounted to little more than a Wallpapering table set up one of the corridors. :rotfl: