Claiming VAT on recent purchases and shipping times vs Air freight.

[robzilla]

Hi all,

Time is coming up for me to head back to sunny Melbourne!

A couple of quick questions:

1) We are looking at purchasing some household items. How do we go about claiming back VAT on these if we are not taking them as hand luggage? I have had to show jewellery/cameras before when claiming tax back - is this applicable for household items?

2) What is the cut off in size for air freight vs shipping? Also what is the time difference? When we had three boxes flown over it only took a week or so, but is shipping a few weeks? or a few months?!

3) Any other tips? Any decent movers people can recommend?

Cheers!
Bob

[Goochie]

Hi Bob.

Sorry I cant help with the VAT question but I'll be interested to hear the answers. We are looking to buy a few things from John Lewis in a week or so and ship them with our stuff so we cant present them at the airport either.

Sea freight takes about 2 months and we found it to be significantly cheaper than air freight or excess baggage. If you Google Seven Seas Worldwide they have a calculator on their website which will give you costs and times. We dont have enough stuff to fill a full container so we're using their MoveCube service -- You'll find details on that through their website too.