Cathinjoetown

Okay, Flanner is correct so if the goods are in your checked luggage, find the VAT refund guys in Nice before you check your luggage. I have never done this in Nice so can't tell you where to go at the aiport. It's a fairly small airport.

If goods are in your carry on, you should have ample time in London between flights, assuming no delays. In terminals 3 and 4 I know from many times personal experience that the VAT desks are just after you go through Security, as you enter the main flight-side duty-free shops and restaurant area.

Assume terminals 1,2 and 4 would be similar?

I always have the refund apllied to my credit card and have not had a problem--LV will set the forms up for this, not Customs.

3sica

clueless - i think i shd have no worries about dubai...it is Nice/Heathrow that I am worried/confused over.

cath - Seems that the checked luggage option is more convenient, since I can complete everything in Nice, but horror stories of bags with this kinda goods in it going MIA is deterring me.

scatcat - i worry about buying multiples becoz of what clueless has said, me being Asian. Hopefully my Singapore passport will get me out of this. (my friend told me about 2 tourists of another asian nationality who bugged her to buy bags for them when she was near the boutique, apparently they buy back to manufacture replicas...enough said)

ekscrunchy - how typical of the folded arms! hahaha

The rules do make more sense to me now that I am reading it again with the all the extra input.
Thanks!!!!

Guenmai

Unless things have changed, you don't have to go to the airport to get your refund money although you will have to get the paperwork stamped eventually.

You can get your money refunded in the city. I bought my LV at the St.Germain store, where I usually shop, and then jumped on the metro and went up to Blvd de la Madeleine to Les Tros Galieries, where there's a men's store that has a detaxe office on the second floor, near the escalator. It's right across the street from the back side of the Madeleine church which you can get to by walking up the rue Royale. It would be to the right of the back of the Madeleine church on Blvd. de la Madeleine. You can ask Vuitton about it. There were two locations in the city that I could have gone to.

I showed my paperwork there and then they gave me cash Euros as I wanted my refund money so that I could keep shopping in Paris. They would also do a credit card credit if one wanted. Later I left Paris and flew to Copenhagen to catch my flight back to L.A., a few days later. I had the paperwork stamped there and mailed in the stamped detaxe form to the head detaxe office. If you don't stamp the paperwork and mail in the form, then they will charge your credit card the amount of money that you got back from the detaxe money granted you in the city.

One thing you'll have to remember is that, when LV does the detaxe forms in Paris, they will put them in an envelope and put a French stamp on it. But, if you're not going to be mailing the form from France, then you'll need a stamp from whatever country you'll be mailing it from. I was in Copenhagen, no problem, as I lived there for 2-plus decades of summers and I know where the post office is. So, I went to the post office, before I left the city, and got a Danish stamp and put it over the French one and mailed the form, from the airport in Copenhagen, after I got it stamped.

So maybe you should mail the stamped form from Singapore back to the detaxe office if you end up out of France and can't find a stamp.

Here in L.A., there was a way to go to the consulate, I think it was, and show your goods there and have them stamp the forms and then mail them back to Europe. I don't know if that system still exists. I never had to use it since I always took care of it in Europe. Happy Travels!

3sica

wow.. getting the cash back before I leave would be great! More shopping $!
i wonder if that can still be done now.
thanks for the details!
do you remember the name of the detaxe office? Is it something like Travelex or GlobalRefund?

Guenmai

Probably Global Refund. Ask in the Vuitton store, in Paris, and they can give you the address of the city locations if they're still offering that system.

And another thing, be careful if you're going to be walking around the city with Vuitton shopping bags. What I do when I make my Vuitton purchases is take my beat-up, T.J.Maxx-bought Kipling bookbag-style, shoulder bag with me to the Vuitton store. I then tell them to just put my new purchases in my Kipling bag. I don't walk around with a Vuitton shopping bag. I tell them that I don't need the Vuitton shopping bag. I've been doing it like that for many years. I take the metro and buses.

I read that, last year I think it was, Catherine Deneuve was coming out of the Vuitton store on the Champs E, and her purse was snatched. You have to be careful and watchful. Even one day when I was in Sonia Rykiel, the salesperson was admiring my red, epi leather Passy bag, and said to me to be careful and to watch my bag. I'm used to big cities and being watchful. Paris is not Singapore. So careful. Happy Travels!

ekscrunchy

Paris Global Refund offices:


http://tinyurl.com/crfzhy

clueless20

the problem w/the LV imposed limit is that i dont think they really care what passport you're carrying, just what you look like case in point, i'm asian but grew up in the states and have an american passport. i speak perfect english (at least i hope i do as that's the only language i speak fluently ), and was still only allowed to buy 2 items. hopefully things have changed (esp w/the economy being so terrible), but i seriously doubt you'll have much buying multiple items (it'll look that much more suspicious if you have a whole shopping list of bags you want to buy! ). do NOT send the items in your checkin luggage - i've heard of too many horror stories to even consider ever doing that. good luck and enjoy shopping in paris!

3sica

thanks guenmai, will be extra careful. i am now thinking of which bag to bring with me so that I can keep it as close to my person as possible. Better leave my LVs and Gucci at home then...anyway, DH shd prove to be an adequate bodyguard. He is my extra pair of eyes anywhere we go (im the clumsy type who will trip over, step on things and he is always the one who is pulling me away just in the nick of time )

Thanks ekscrunchy, i will check them out.

Clueless, I am heartbroken at the limit (and I think I hear sounds of breaking hearts back in Singapore too) but no choice I guess. Guess the only one happy to hear this is DH

Looking forward to shopping in Paris, counting down already...still 2.5months to go!