Why do I have to show my boarding pass?

Certain airports are still asking to see passengers boarding passes when purchasing duty free products (Alamy)

Q At Naples airport duty free, we were asked to present our boarding cards. We tried to question this but got nowhere. Plus an English couple mentioned that the same had happened to them at Stansted on the way out. I thought this practice had stopped? Andrew Wilson

A The duty free/boarding pass story has, in some quarters, taken on a life of its own. Our summer campaign was aimed squarely at a practice by high street retailers such as WH Smith and Boots: charging the same tax-inclusive price even to passengers who were travelling outside the EU and therefore were not liable for VAT. For example, a bottle of sunscreen retailing for £6 includes a £1 element of VAT. We wanted the companies to change their practices to ensure that passengers heading for destinations such as Switzerland, Florida and Thailand paid the lower price of £5.

A good way to apply pressure is to decline to show a boarding pass. The retailer must assume the destination is inside the EU and is thus subject to tax.

Our campaign attracted plenty of attention, but in some quarters the close focus on the single issue was lost. Some elements of the media encouraged wholesale non-compliance when asked for a boarding pass. Try this at, for example, World Duty Free, and you will be met with polite refusal. The firm, which sells alcohol, tobacco and perfume, has an agreement with HMRC that it will gather destination details from every passenger. That is presumably why the Stansted passengers had that experience. And since every country has a different duty-free regime, I would not recommend non-compliance when shopping abroad.

One final word: airports are by nature high-cost locations, and you may well be able to save by buying from an ordinary store at home or abroad.