I always detaxe at CDG even if I am stopping in London. I have never had a problem doing this, even when I have had a stopover in London. It's been awhile since I transferred through LHR but I think you have to go through security and immigration. You may have to change terminals too depending upon if you are BA all the way through or have an AA segment.
Best way to 'detax' after H in Europe
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I always detaxe at CDG even if I am stopping in London. I have never had a problem doing this, even when I have had a stopover in London. It's been awhile since I transferred through LHR but I think you have to go through security and immigration. You may have to change terminals too depending upon if you are BA all the way through or have an AA segment.
I am a little late to the conversation but wanted to add this. I was in Paris in February and used AMX for all Hermes purchases. except one where I used my Target Visa (no foreign transaction fees). My Target Visa VAT refund showed up in 3 weeks while my AMX VAT refunds took about 10 weeks. Yesterday I received AMX VAT refunds from a trip in April-- this one was 8 weeks .
I have called AMX several different times when it has been over 2 months and still no refunds and they have always said that it is out of their control . I have always suspected that they purposely hold the VAT refunds so that they can have use of your money for as long as possible.
They absolutely do. Your experience is consistent with mine. I got no where with my first call to Amex. I finally asked to speak with a supervisor who was experienced with their relationship with global blue. I'm going to follow up next week because I'm expecting my large refund today. I already told them to google to find our thread and that we are not stupid and that we are unhappy that they are trying to put this over on us.
An update on my refund that I had stamped on 4/16. I called global blue. They sent it to Amex today, 6/20, even later than they told me. The amount was 1834 euros. They say they sent $1919.79. It should have been $2047.02, $127 more. Per my previous conversation with Amex their policy is to post it within three days so I'm going to wait until Thursday to call to demand that I be credited and for the correct amount.
I might be wrong but as they stated, they would convert the Euro to pounds and then to dollar for AMEX... Using their own exchange rate... so €1834 after 2 conversions might as well be $1919.79?!
My case was... when I purchased, the bank surcharged the rate at 8.73; when I got the tax refund, Global Blue returned the amount at 8.18, which imho is already better than few yrs before ....
But again, as u said, it could only be my case and I m sure you must have your grounds on getting the numbers right
It's still off by about $100. More importantly I'm going to contest their notion that they are allowed to get away with this nonsense with the currency exchanges without us noticing and putting up a fight. They should at least be aware that we know what's going on and we don't like it. If I don't get the extra $127 I won't be heartbroken of course but if enough of us start complaining maybe they will stop.
Has anyone ever just taken the Hermes store credit? I wonder what kind of nightmares that presents, but since I go back fairly often I wonder if it would be more financially advantageous. Hermes should at least give us back our meager 10% at the airport in cash like everyone else so we could avoid these problems.
Think this issue has been around for quite some time:
https://forum.purseblog.com/threads...redit-detaxe-in-for-amex-card-holders.753307/
And I agree with one post which says it is AMEX who wants to gain (or avoid loss) by demanding refund to be settled in £ first
The same happens to my AMEX in my home country that any foreign spending will first be converted to US$ and then to my home currency... I m okay with it as AMEX is a US company n it makes sense to me
So I only use AMEX in my home country or whenever I go to the States but nowhere else
I personally think it is ridiculous to even have Global Blue to be the agent who takes huge advantages in between while making all customers run around like idiots for what we deserve to get back
But somehow I think Global Blue is "backed" by the EU and the brands as its existence serves to alleviate Customs' workload, avoid conflicts between customers and individual government, consolidate refund cases and most importantly to create job opportunities so probably there won't be changes until the day the refund got so bad people start to boycott by stop buying in these countries n eventually harm the EU countries' economies...
And I don't take things for granted as it has never been in the law that foreigners must have their tax refunds back... the whole tax refund thing is more like an incentive...
While tax refund has never been possible in Canada and half of the states in America
So while u get tax refund (although not 100%) shopping in the EU; Europeans get nth back while shopping in most states in your country
I totally understand your anger but I hope the above makes u feel better (if saving quite a lot and having your dream items don't) ^^
Yes I have read the older threads. My anger is not at the EU, etc. They offer it as an incentive and it is very nice. US tax rates are no where near as high as European taxes so hopefully that makes you feel better.
My anger is at American Express. I pay a large annual fee ($450) for the card benefits which include no foreign transaction fees. So to play games with the currency exchanges is insulting to me as a customer. They make plenty of money from me from all of the merchants fees that they collect for my purchases. They charge merchants much more than visa or other companies. So they don't need to steal a portion of my refund and hope I'm too stupid to figure it out.
From now on I'll take my refund on my Visa card as global blue suggested to me. I'd love to hear if anyone has experience taking Hermes store credit.
PdP, all my refunds from April came back with amount somewhat less than I expected. I don't know why, as value of euro actually went up tiny bit since the trip, but that's how they showed up in my accounts. Some were charged on Amex. Some were charged on visa. You reminded me to call the companies and inquire what is happening with those.
I wasn't aware there was the option to choose store credit. I think I'll definitely want to go ahead that route as I've had bits of problems with H refunds in the past. I would report back how it goes, provided I score some H goodies for my upcoming trip.
My sister still did not receive the refund for her K purchase in April btw. After contacting global blue, they wrote back something along the line it had a problem with export regulation and directed to contact them. I'm thinking they are saying this as that was the single item Pablo didn't scan and needed to see the agent, like your experiences in the past.
I wasn't aware there was the option to choose store credit. I think I'll definitely want to go ahead that route as I've had bits of problems with H refunds in the past. I would report back how it goes, provided I score some H goodies for my upcoming trip.
My sister still did not receive the refund for her K purchase in April btw. After contacting global blue, they wrote back something along the line it had a problem with export regulation and directed to contact them. I'm thinking they are saying this as that was the single item Pablo didn't scan and needed to see the agent, like your experiences in the past.
That is exactly what they do. I am a numbers person, so with this knowledge I have tried in the past to match the calculation (euro to pound, pound to dollar) by making an educated guess on what dates those different conversions happen. I have never been able to match their end result. For someone like me who likes to recalculate everything
, it is frustrating to not be able to tie to the number.I don't know if it would be worse to deal with Hermes than global blue if you had a problem with the refund. We all know the pros and cons of Hermes customer service. I did have that problem once when the agent didn't stamp my firm correctly and I fortunately got to a nice person at global blue who helped me. I wonder how you track it or know that the credit is there for you with Hermes. For now I think I'll pay with Amex but when they ask "do you want the refund back on the same card?" I'll say no and give them my visa. I suspect this is why they ask every time we pay.
Before you get mad at American Express, we should probably gather the data to make sure if Visa / master do give you better rates. I did a little survey among my friends since last time this topic got brought up, and so far I'm not sure if the loss in $$ is from American Express. I heard people getting about 0.99 Euro to USD rate in May on Visa, when it was about 1.05 - 1.07. I'm not sure if it's Global blue or CC companies that's causing all this loss in transaction. I do know that within the past 2 years my experiences with global blue have significantly gone downhill. More and more fees on cash refund, which brings me to consider getting cc refund now. And since they outsourced part of their process to other companies, there are more and more problems.
A few years ago I had a conversation with a Chanel SA and she told me they do listen when customers express their dissatisfaction. She told me a customer wrote to the head office and complained about the tax refund, and they decided to change their policy. I was quite happy with the process with global blue back then so I wasn't really paying attention to what they changed. (Maybe they switch from global blue to premier tax free? I don't remember) But the point is, I think it's important to give feedback to these companies. Getting tax refund has become a quite unpleasant experience and I think they (both shops and tax refund agents) need to know that.
Interesting thoughts. Several people wrote in above comparing the rates they received from Amex versus visa and they seem to have done better with visa. We also compared the dates that visa refunds were received versus Amex and Amex is much slower. Global blue told me this outright as well. So I really do believe that Amex is playing games.
Processing time is shorter with Visa, that's consistent with my little survey, that's why I only brought up the exchange rate. I didn't see conversion rate comparison on this thread other than a relatively general expression of feeling satisfied, but I might have missed it. I was doing the survey hoping that I could get a confirmation that I can go ahead with the refund going to my Chase for a bigger bill, so I was quite disappointed to hear the results to be honest. Another reason why I don't trust global blue much is that from my experiences, especially in the past 2 years, not all their information on the website is up to date / accurate. On the website it says you can get X € per form or Y € per passport per day for cash refund but in reality the computer wouldn't process it even at a <X amount, and the Y is not so consistent. Some days it goes through and some days it only takes a <Y amount.
I think it is still on topic to discuss if it's better to have the cc refund going to visa or Amex or master, or if it's worth it at all to do cc refund in Europe (for those who shop in countries other than France). So I'm bringing up my discovery / thoughts / doubts. I want to know too.