I bought a watch there yesterday, and while I’m still happy with the watch, the service rather dampened the fun. The fellow seemed nice enough at first, and he did try, again, at first, the make the experience a pleasant one, especially since I loved the watch I’d chosen. But then he got snarky. He was adjusting the links on the watch, and interrupted my work to work on someone else’s. I pointed out I had a plane to catch(in under an hour, no less), and he goes, «They all say that.» Dumbass sales clerk, if you’re reading this, you do realize you work in an airport? And that if you are helping someone, finish helping them unless they give express agreement to you helping someone else for a bit?
Harjit D.
Place rating: 3 Milton, VT
One of the largest duty free stores at Terminal 5 Heathrow. You’ll find everything from fragrances, alcohol, jewelry, chocolates, and everything else in between. Keep in mind that just because it’s duty free, it doesn’t mean they are great prices. You’ll find better deals at other airports or at your local stores.
Cindy H.
Place rating: 3 San Diego, CA
Huge duty free store downstairs after you go through security. They have everything from sunglasses to cosmetics and fragrances to teas and chocolate to spirits and cigarettes. Not always a better deal than buying at home when I had looked at several items and comparing to the US prices.
Cathy C.
Place rating: 3 North Las Vegas, NV
This is the biggest Duty Free store in T5. I had a few hundred DKK’s I wanted to get rid of and I had space in my carry-on bag so, shopping I went. They have the typical perfumes, chocolates, cookies, candies, tea, alcohol, etc that you’ve seen in Duty Free shops everywhere. I have a specific brand of chocolates on my shopping list and that brand wasn’t at the other shops at T5. Duty Free FTW! They had promos too. I also ended up with a new pair of sunglasses that actually fit my narrow head. They gave me Jelly Belly for free. So, I brought my items at the counter so I can pay and leave. Me: do you take kroners? Cashier 1(who doesn’t look/sound British): I don’t speak French. Me: well, okay but do you take Danish Kroners? Cashier 2: yes, we do! Cashier 1 had the confused look on her face. Smoke much?
A J.
Place rating: 3 San Jose, CA
I bought Tea with strawberry 5.75 pond($ 8.96) as souvenir. They have lots of selections for tea. Also I sampled cognac there, because I was asked to buy one for our family party in Sweden. I got really good cognac, which UK’s King and Queen’s favorite. Brits has pride for their own whisky, so they strongly recommended me to buy as well, but I politely declined.
Andrew T.
Place rating: 1 Jamaica Plain, MA
This is the primary duty-free shop in Heathrow Terminal 5, designed for easy access right after you pass through security. Quite large and initially appears to have a good selection of luxury and/or UK products. However, this outpost had a terrible selection of Ray Bans(pretty much at US retail price but if you have to pay VAT they could be cheap?), no Hendricks gin, no Creed products, no Moulton Brown, etc. Maybe my taste sucks, but it seemed very superficial and focusing on major global brands(eg Armani, CK, etc). I will say that the Whisky section was ridiculously large and totally out of control, so it is quite variable. In terms of prices on the items most people care about, cigarettes and booze, they weren’t that great. 38 pounds for a carton of cigarettes is a ripoff unless you’re comparing directly to taxed high street prices. Even on British Airways in-flight duty free, a carton of similar cigarettes was 29 pounds. My main beef with this store is that as a foreign traveler outpost, you have the option to choose how your purchase is denominated(USD, EUR, CHF, etc). However, if you choose anything other than GBP they charge you a 2.75% currency conversion charge. Stick with GBP and let your credit card deal with normal conversion(you are using a no-foreign transaction fee rewards card, right?) They did try to scare/scam me by saying if they ran it thru as GBP on my card, the exchange rate would be GBPUSD1.84, which is nowhere near the fee I paid on all of my other UK purchases. Bollocks if you ask me. Another pro tip: for terminals 5B and 5C, there are smaller duty-free shops gateside, run by the same company. So if you’re in a rush and just want the duty-free basics, you can go to your gate first, check the gate queue, and then hit up duty-free. Bottom line, TL;DR: items are overpriced and the store tries to scam you if you’re not a Briton.