On Duty Free, and Booze.

Ok, so, LCA2005 was great, and I had a wonderful time catching up with all these folks that I hadn't seen in ages. Excellent.

Anyway, as is your duty when you travel abroad, you must buy alcohol in Duty Free on the way home. I did this. Let's say why first - On this particular trip, I wasn't really wanting to get anything for us (my girlfriend and I).. the cupboard at home is stocked quite well. But, I did owe a workmate a small debt, and he said he'd love to get a bottle of his favourite whiskey as payment.

It happens to be a 21 year old Glenlivet. Expensive, mmk? Ok, this is fine, I do owe him that much, so the price isn't an issue. Anyway, I arrive in Sydney from Canberra, and spend a good day catching up with another Debian Developer (bod), and get to do a little Geocaching - sweet, I had some Travel Bugs to drop off.

To the airport with enough time to check in, get through security, and do the things I need to do (and you still end up waiting.. grr).

So, I wandered towards the immigration/security place, and stumbled across Downtown Duty Free. I had a little poke around, wondering if they had a 21yo Glenlivet. Turns out they do. Woot! And I only came into the store, because they had an AU$5 for 200ml of Johnnie Walker Black Label deal! Mmmm. After purchasing both, with a little interlude whilst I jumped onto the net with my PDA to transfer some funds to my Visa for the purchase, I dutifully wandered off to do the immigration/security thing. No worries. Came out the other side, fetched my Duty Free purchases from the collection point on the Other Side(tm), and boarded the plane to head to Auckland. Arrived in Auckland - whilst waiting on the flight to disembark, I had a peek in the Duty Free bag. There was a 200ml bottle of JW. Cool. And a bottle of 12yo Glenlivet. Swee... HOLD ON! 12 year old?!%^@!#!? F**K!.

Turns out they'd screwed up and packed the wrong bottle into the bag at the collection point. So, I have since done the deed and called to harrass them - they've given me 1 of 2 options:

1. Take a refund from the 21yo price to the 12yo price - ~AU$100 (a bottle of 21yo scotch is expensive, remember?)
2. Have someone pick up a 21yo bottle from a Downtown store for me, on their way to NZ. This has the advantage of giving me a free 12yo.

You can tell which option I want, right?

So, there happens to be a group of aussies coming to Dunedin in just under a month for Ghosts of past LCA's.. I can hopefully swing one of them to drop by and grab it for me.. But, if anyone else is heading to NZ sooner - please drop me a line, I'd love to organise with you to pick it up for me!

The moral of the story? Either never purchase stuff Duty Free at one of those pre-immigration display stores, or ALWAYS check what you pick up at the collection point, to see if it matches the receipt you get.

[00:46] [/Life] [permanent link]