Is Duty Free a Good Deal?
Sunday July 30, 2006
You're walking through the airport, and there is a duty free store every few hundred yards. Should the budget traveler set aside money for these opportunities? Finding an answer to that question can be tricky. Much depends on the product and place, so don't automatically assume duty free is always the best deal. Read more...
Comments
My experience has been that the duty free shops are the best way to get rid of any extra local currency. If needed, any differences in price can be made up with a credit card. Duty free shops may not be the bargains they used to be, but they are still a better bargain than money exchanges.
Duty free is almost a dodo bird, at least as far as liquids, one of the big bait in escaping sin taxes in home territory.
A lot of goods (non-potable) are rather expensive name brands. My choice is servicable items at much lower cost in local stores.
I agree on using local currency, especially coins that are not part of trip mimentos.
On a trip to USSR we got a half liter of Vodka with Russian label. This was almost twenty years ago. We still treasure the bottle, and will open it sometime. It isn’t wine so we don’t expect any new tastes when we sample it.