iPhone 15 Pro Max Buying iPhone 15/15PM at airport(s)?

[StrollerEd]

Are there tax-free possibilities if traveling from UK through Canada / USA / Australia / Singapore ?

And which is most likely the better deal?

Any downsides to look out for? - might skip the USA option as that has eSIM ....

 

[Lex404]

From my experience, "tax free" in most airports is snake oil. It either doesn't exists or the price is inflated and the total price matches the street price.
Unless some notorious place for alcohol and I think cigarettes, electronics are not very "tax free".

Few examples:
JFK perfumes, matches street price
JFK electronics: not many, over the street price (or amazon)
SLC perfumes, matches street price
IST alcohol is way way lower than street price (but alcohol is extremely taxed in Turkey)

Haven't been to Singapore in a long time and never been to AUS. But visiting around 30-40 airports yearly and duty free isn't that duty free anymore in most cases. Maybe Dubai and Doha, but again, for electronics I doubt so.

This apart from the 15 (PM) scarce availability.

You can get it cheaper if you fly to a low tax state in the US and just buy it. I'm flying from Poland to NYC next week and I have my in store pickup. The flight costs was the price difference between PL w/ VAT and NYC w/ 8.8% tax, $420 diff for a 15 Pro 512. It's crazy

 

[sack_peak]

Are there tax-free possibilities if traveling from UK through Canada / USA / Australia / Singapore ?

And which is most likely the better deal?

Any downsides to look out for? - might skip the USA option as that has eSIM ....

Apple Store or iStudio at SG's airport then get a GST refund at airport.

Compare MSRP and forex.

 

[StrollerEd]

From my experience, "tax free" in most airports is snake oil. It either doesn't exists or the price is inflated and the total price matches the street price.
Unless some notorious place for alcohol and I think cigarettes, electronics are not very "tax free".

Few examples:
JFK perfumes, matches street price
JFK electronics: not many, over the street price (or amazon)
SLC perfumes, matches street price
IST alcohol is way way lower than street price (but alcohol is extremely taxed in Turkey)

Haven't been to Singapore in a long time and never been to AUS. But visiting around 30-40 airports yearly and duty free isn't that duty free anymore in most cases. Maybe Dubai and Doha, but again, for electronics I doubt so.

This apart from the 15 (PM) scarce availability.

You can get it cheaper if you fly to a low tax state in the US and just buy it. I'm flying from Poland to NYC next week and I have my in store pickup. The flight costs was the price difference between PL w/ VAT and NYC w/ 8.8% tax, $420 diff for a 15 Pro 512. It's crazy

Thanks, but does the eSIM in the US model bother you?

 

[sack_peak]

Thanks, but does the eSIM in the US model bother you?

May be a problem for international travelers who maintain a domestic nanoSIM per country they interact with.

 

[Lex404]

Nah, I'm using exclusively eSIM since iPhone 11.

My polish carrier is super cool, can activate a new eSIM in a new phone while in Roaming, relatively cheap roaming ($10/ GB in the US, but I use AirAlo anywhere out of EU).

I found the eSIM nicer than getting local SIM cards. Yah you might be able to save 5-10 freedom bucks in some cheap countries if you buy local (like SE Asia), but going through the entire hassle and queues doesn't worth the effort. Last time I got a local sim was in 2020 Jan in Turkey, it took over an hour. Since then I only use AirAlo, it's incredible to have connection the second you land and you can do your trip without wasting time in queues.