How much wine is lost at airports by unsuspecting duty free buyers? LOTS!
It is not likely you'll be able to take that bottle with you that you just bought when you passed through duty free in route to your flight if you have to change flights in route home. Though the duty free sellers will tell you you can, and even look it up for you in their rules book and insist that you can take it through the security screening process. It's not just duty free like ALDEASA at the international gates in Santiago, Chile, but also at the Frankfurt, Germany Airport, where they will put it in a sealed bag for you. However, once you get to your next destination, if you can't stow it in your checked luggage before your next onward flight, you'll loose it at the security checkpoint.
I almost lost one good bottle of French wine when I was coming from Frankfurt and transferred in Denver. Fortunately that time, I had picked up my bag expecting to carry it on. I stowed the bottle in my bag and had to go to check it on. Just recently on a return trip from Chile, ALDEASA Duty Free shop insisted I could take it through. I was able to get on the first flight because I had already gone through the security checkpoint. But, in Panama City you must go through a check point right at the gate before you board your flight and they would not let me take the bottle on even though it was sealed in a duty free bag.
So, I'd suggest you NOT get duty free liquor or wine. Or, if someone could fill me in on their method of getting a good bottle of wine you bought as a present through to home, I'd be really thrilled. I was not thrilled at loosing $24.00!!! And, who drinks all that duty free wine that won't be allowed through the security checkpoints?
Good luck and fine wine-tasting!
MO
