Boots shoppers furious over new rules at airport shops and say 'ridiculous'

James Rodger
·2-min read

Boots has made an "absolutely ridiculous" change to online fees as shoppers fume about "pure greed". Boots, which operates stores across Birmingham, from Grand Central to New Street as well as Brindleyplace and beyond, has hiked its airport click and collect fee to £4.50 - three times more than the previous cost.

The service is available at 15 airports but angry customers and shoppers have noted a hike in the fee from £1.50, or free on orders of more than £15, to £4.50. A Twitter/X user fumed: “£4.50 is an excessive charge for click and collect anywhere. Looks like pure greed to me!”

Another added: “Boots charging £4.50 to click and collect from airport stores. Absolutely ridiculous. No way round it." A third fumed: “As someone who regularly uses this service too, I am also annoyed at this. Why so much? You charge less to ship to my home!”

READ MORE UK faces first 30C heatwave of year - with more scorching weather to follow

And another said: "Wow that is shocking! Disappointed in Boots for that - just greedy." Replying to the fury, a spokesperson for the chemist and the pharmacy giant said: “Sadly we were unable to continue offering this service at the previous price point.

“The airport stores incurred additional charges for security scans for each order they received and as the service grew in popularity, additional storage space was required to smoothly process each order received.” Susannah Streeter, of investment firm Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "Although this has been partly due to a new store at Luton and revamped outlets in Gatwick and Manchester, it seems clear that the company is profiting from a captive market, given the limited products travellers can take through security.

"However, its US parent company Walgreens Boots Alliance has been struggling, reporting an operating loss for the last quarter, due to one-off charges but also partly due to declining retail sales. There is speculation that Boots may be spun off as a separate company and floated on the London Stock Exchange.

"Recouping costs wherever it can right now is clearly a priority, and with the UK airport security system proving to be an ongoing headache, Boots is wasting no time in passing on extra overheads to customers."

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