Bits: 400% Apple bonus with Heathrow Rewards, get 10 x Nectar points on petrol

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• Jonny says:

  3 Oct3 October 05:31

  Is dixons travel actually any cheaper for the latest Apple gear? Eg the new iPhone.

• Paul says:

  3 Oct3 October 07:20

  Qatar to SYD could be very good news especially if they use their superb A350 or 787 ( though I have no idea if they have the range ) MEL is a 777 operation which has the older style seats.
  Now that the Aussie $ has returned to something approaching a sensible level it might mean returning to OZ for me where o have not been since 2009.
  Wonder if QR will offer some different routes such as recent OSL fares from CX. Could make for an interesting trip

• Chris L says:

  3 Oct3 October 08:01

  iPhone 6S and 6S plus are exactly the same price at Dixons Travel as at the Apple Store so no saving. You also don’t get the bonus Heathrow Rewards points if you buy them as they are excluded from the offer. They’ve also started selling the Apple Watch which is also exactly the same price.

  I think the only things that are marginally cheaper are the MacBooks and iPads.

  • Zoe says:

    3 Oct3 October 09:03

    If you want a MacBook find a uni student to take to the Apple Store with you. We got 14% discount

    • WB says:

      3 Oct3 October 21:26

      14% on laptops, 12% on desktops.

    • JQ says:

      3 Oct3 October 22:16

      Better still, find a Hong Kong student, discount and no sales taxes!

• harry says:

  3 Oct3 October 08:05

  O/T Iberia Plus is giving a 200 Avios free ‘welcome’ present for new joiners, which presumably count as your minimum earning points so that you can in future transfer points to avios.com. Am I right in thinking I need to wait 90 days to do this transfer? (I did also transfer a few MRs over, so possibly the 200 free Avios were as a result of this instead of just opening the a/c).

  • Rob says:

    3 Oct3 October 10:23

    Yes, still 90 days.

    Will take a look at the 200 offer, would be useful.

• pauldb says:

  3 Oct3 October 08:22

  Shame that being over 7000 miles, the DOH-SYD leg alone will be 150k avios in J. That makes it the same cost as BA LHR-SYD, or QF LHR-(DXB)-SYD booked as one segment. So redeeming from Europe on QR (best case 375k J return) would have to be a last resort. More chance of this being of use to HFPers through cash sale fares.

  • Sebastian says:

    3 Oct3 October 14:59

    With the sale prices Qatar do for Business Class from Europe and the the earning rate you’ll get in Avios and Tier points, paying cash rather than an Avios redemption is the way to go. Unless of course you have mountains of Avios.

• Stuart McIntyre says:

  3 Oct3 October 08:35

  Just something to watch. You won’t receive a VAT receipt from Dixons Travel, so if you are personally VAT-registered, or if you’ll be claiming back the purchase from your employer, the purchase will actually be 20% more expensive than purchasing from the Apple Store or elsewhere in the UK…

  • RIccati says:

    3 Oct3 October 08:43

    Presumably, they (Dixons) will be reclaiming that VAT…

    • Stuart McIntyre says:

      3 Oct3 October 08:51

      Given the furore over the way airport retailers use our boarding pass info recently, it wouldn’t surprise me one jot…

  • DV says:

    3 Oct3 October 09:11

    Yes you will, if you ask for one, and if you are flying to an EU destination. You can’t get one if you are flying out of the EU for obvious reasons. The savings on iPads and. MacBooks are good at Dixons Travel, and that’s before you take the Heathrow Rewards into account.

    • harry says:

      3 Oct3 October 09:32

      They must give you a VAT invoice by law if you request one & you are flying within EU.

• Mark B says:

  3 Oct3 October 09:27

  Thanks for pointing out the Nectar petrol deal raffles, I always like to get something back for fuel purchases and right now this seems the best deal going. Worth saving the nectar points for when they do that ‘1,000 points for 2 pizza express main courses’ deal again, that made a nectar point worth about 2p I think!

  • harry says:

    3 Oct3 October 09:38

    The Morrisons petrol deal is far better, I got 90p [ninety pence, no mistake] off a litre (on 60 litres tank) yesterday plus 1800 Avios = another £18 for me. And a £6 off £50 voucher.

  • Brian says:

    3 Oct3 October 11:04

    The Esso deal, if you got it on your Amex card(s), is probably better though, isn’t it? 10% off beats 5p off…

    • harry says:

      3 Oct3 October 15:56

      It ranks like this:

      Best: Morrisons, get up to everything off (ie free petrol), plus your Avios points on top; if you are prepared to buy £1000 worth of giftcards, you’ll get £1 off a litre up to 100 litres + maybe 2000 Avios (=£20) – let’s call it up to 120p off a litre

      No 2: £5 off £50 with Esso & Amex – so, 11p off a litre

      No 3: 5p off a litre @ Sainsbury if you can use the Nectar points

      • harry says:

        3 Oct3 October 18:34

        Morrisons are paying you to buy petrol, provided you can justify buying £1000 of giftcards every time you fill up.

        • Brian says:

          3 Oct3 October 19:44

          They’re paying you also for the time it takes to process the pay.com cards, I assume…

        • JQ says:

          3 Oct3 October 22:18

          Which means you can pay someone else to do it… (your kids?)

        • harry says:

          4 Oct4 October 13:34

          Depends on the fiddliness of the bill you are paying. Ie Amazon (new HFP route) is a cinch, no need for CVV code = about 1 minute. But South West Water needs all sorts of details incl address, a/c number etc = about 3 mins.

          Probably averages people 2 mins per £25 card if you use Firefox on save details + a nice bit of cut & paste. (I’m much faster than that 🙂 )

          £1000 = 40 cards, so maybe 90 mins, which sounds onerous but you can watch TV/ listen to radio etc at the same time.

      • Sussex bantam says:

        3 Oct3 October 18:44

        Don’t forget you also get avios on your 50 spend at Esso and JS but I agree morrisons is by far the best if you can find a home for significant gift card spend.

        No pay.com in my local two stores though – so hard to find a home for that many Amazon cards !

• Nick says:

  3 Oct3 October 09:37

  This is a really noddy question, but what is tax-free shopping at airports all about? As I understand it, shops should not charge VAT on sales of goods to passengers travelling to a non-EU country. Why is that? If I’m flying to the US for example, is DIxons deemed to have made an export of the goods and so treats it as a zero-rated supply?

  Do Dixons actually charge a different price to long-haul and EU passengers?

  • Nick says:

    3 Oct3 October 09:42

    On this: my wife was going to buy a ludicrously expensive handbag at LHR recently, because it was £200 cheaper than the high street. The saving was presumably due to the tax-free thing. She was flying to Asia. They offered to put it aside for her so she could collect on her return. IF they are zero rating stuff because the goods are exported outside of the EU, it strikes me as dodgy that they apply this treatment for stuff that they put aside and allow you to collect on return.

    • harry says:

      3 Oct3 October 09:45

      That’s within the rules, so not dodgy.

      • Nick says:

        3 Oct3 October 10:13

        Not doubting you, but why does an airport get special treatment? If the goods don’t leave the store, I don’t see how it is an export, That morning my wife could have strolled in to a dept store, told them she wanted the bag but was flying to Asia, so she’d pay for it now and come and collect it a week later. They couldn’t zero-rate it based on those facts (nor, I suspect, could they if they let her take it with her) so why can a shop at an airport do it? That’s what I don’t understand.

        • harry says:

          3 Oct3 October 10:24

          That’s why they would have taken a scan of your wife’s boarding pass.

          Basically the airside ‘duty free’ shops set their prices, generally one price for all which includes VAT. They can reclaim the VAT on purchases made by passengers flying outside the EU. This may allow the shop to offer lower prices than in the UK high st. For passengers flying within the EU, the VAT cannot be reclaimed by the shop.

        • harry says:

          3 Oct3 October 10:28

          ‘Reclaimed’ is poor choice of words, for passengers flying outwith the EU, the shop just doesn’t pay the VAT in the first place, ie profitability is higher on that item.

        • Nick says:

          3 Oct3 October 12:04

          Thanks. As regards reclaim: I actually think it is the right choice of words. As you say, the shop doesn’t collect the VAT from the customer so they keep every penny they get, making it more profitable for them. However, it’s still treated as a taxable supply (its zero rated not exempt) so they can recover/reclaim input VAT.

          I’ve just spoken to my wife who has corrected me on the facts anyway: the shop actually made her take the bag with her to Asia – she wanted to collect it and I thought that’s what she did, but they made her take it. Presumably, this is so the shop could treat it as a zero rated export rather than a taxable sale, although from what Raffles says it seems that the ultimate price to my wife would have been the same. Anyway, that’s enough VAT for a Saturday morning

  • Rob says:

    3 Oct3 October 10:17

    No, same price to all, which is presumably averaged out across EU and non EU pax volumes. If T5 was only long haul flights if could be different.

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