El Corte Inglés, Spain’s Largest Department Store, Has Special Services for Tourists:
El Corte Inglés – Spain Shopping
Our Spanish tour guide informs us that Spanish people like shopping at El Corte Inglés. This chain department store is the largest in Spain and sells everything from groceries to clothing, electronics, home appliances, etc. and the prices are good. As we were not planning to do any department store shopping in Spain, I filed this information away, that is until Barcelona.
Shopping at El Corte Inglés
One of my favourite Spanish fashion brands happens to be available in the El Corte Inglés store in Plaça de Catalunya in Barcelona. This is when I discover that El Corte Inglés has services that are specially dedicated to tourists shopping in their stores.
Welcome Discount for Tourists
For non-resident tourists, El Corte Inglés offers a 10% Welcome Discount at any of their department stores. Before you shop or pay for your goods go to the Customer Service Department (SAC) to get your Discount Card. You must show a valid passport or photo ID proof that you are a foreign resident – we had a photocopy of our passport and that was fine. Once you’ve got this card, you can carry on with your shopping. The Discount Card is to be given to the cashier for the 10% to be applied. Some goods such as food and books are excluded from this discount.
Shopping Card
If you are visiting various departments or levels in the store, you can shop without having to carry your merchandise around. Ask the El Corte Inglés personnel for a Shopping Card. The card has an ID number which allows them to track your goods which are sent to the Customer Service Department. When you are finished, you can pick up all your shopping at the Customer Service Department and pay for all your purchases in the one transaction.
El Corte Ingles – VAT Refund Desk
Spain VAT Refund
If you reside in a non-European Union (EU) country, Canary Islands, Ceuta or Melilla, you are entitled to have your VAT (Value Added Tax) refunded to you when you leave the EU. El Corte Inglés has an in-house department that handles the VAT refunds if the goods purchased in their department stores exceed €90.15.
After you’ve paid for your shopping, go to their VAT Refund desk to get your refund documentation processed. You will be provided with a piece of paperwork showing the total of your shopping and the VAT amount. This piece of paper must be stamped by Customs on your exiting the EU, and then mailed back to El Corte Inglés. They even provide you with a store self-addressed envelope so that it gets back to the right department.
We were in the El Corte Inglés store in the mid-afternoon and there were a number of people waiting in the queue. It was quite a wait before we got our document processed. As Athens was our last point of exit from the EU from we had our document stamped there. Within three weeks of sending the stamped document back to El Corte Inglés, I had the VAT refund credited to my credit card account. The general Spain VAT rate is 18%, although not everything is charged at this rate. El Corte Inglés deducts a €7 service fee but this is well worth it as the system works.
With the 10% Welcome Discount and the 18% VAT Refund, I saved quite a bit on my shopping at El Corte Inglés.
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We’ve been travelling since septembr’s 28th to october’s 19th, from
Spain to Milan. We asked all vouchers of taxfree from our’s shopping
in Spain and in all the other country.
In the end of the trip, in Milan, the Italians denied to give us the
vouchers of the shoppings made there, saying that it could only be
done in the airport, but te information we had was that the taxfree
would be done when we exit Europe.
In the e-mail you can find all the voucher of taxfree including some
that we alread got in Barcelona in the taxfree near Passeio de Gracia.
And you can see that they are all with the date that we got out, october’s 19th.
All the vouchers include in the e-mail was sended by fedex from here
in Brazil to Taxfree and Global Blue. I believe it will take some days
to you to get this, so I’m sending them again by e-mail to get faster to you.
Verifying my credcard I saw that it was disconted the value of the
payed Taxfree in Barcelona. How can I have this value back?
Luciana,
I’m not sure who you intended to send your above email to but we are a travel planning website and not the tax-free area.
You’re correct in that tax refund should be claimed at the final point of exit from the EU. Your tax refund claim is a bit unclear in your email and I’m not able to give you any advice on this. It seems that the people you should be contacting are Premier Tax Free or Global Blue to whom you’ve Fedexed your vouchers to.
Regards,
Helen Page
Does the discount work on sale items?
Ani, this discount does not apply to certain sale items. Just ask before you purchase.
Kind regards,
Helen