Has anyone ever been to the hypermarkets in France or Belgium in order to buy cigarettes and booze? Is it worth it in what you can save, when you take in to account the cost of getting there etc?

I can't imagine it is worth going all the way from Wirral.When we lived in South London we did a couple of booze trips and it was hardly worth all the aggro and time. So add to that 450 extra miles of travel and I reckon local places will be more favourable.It may depend on what you are after, we got very few cigarettes.

Over the last 20 years we've holidayed in France every year, and always brought back as many bottles of wine and beer as we could fit in the car - presents for friends, and kept us going for most of the year till we went back again!

Over the years it's become less and less of a saving. When we first started going, a bottle of wine that cost around £2.50 in the UK could be picked up for around £1 in France - so just 40% of the UK price. Now with the exchange rate for the Euro being less favourable and the prices in France having increased more in line with the UK a bottle that would cost around £5 in the UK costs £3.50-£4.00 in France. So still a saving (75-80% of the UK price), and still worth doing if we are there anyway for our holiday, but I'd probably not bother making a special trip for buying booze (never bought tobacco so can't comment on that)

Remember as well that you cant buy cigarettes etc in a supermarket you have to go to a bar tabac.

According to my route planner it's 291 miles from Birkenhead to Dover over some of the worst roads in U.K. M6-M1-M25. That's 600 miles round trip including miles in France. Cost at 40 mpg = £90. Ferry, say,£35. Are you going to do it in one day? If not, hotel, say £40.
Cobby is right; there's not so much saving to be had these days, also, remember that a lot of wine that nobody wants to buy ends up in those places.
About ten years ago, I used to go a couple of times a year on business, so the firm covered my costs and I used to buy some wine and since I was a smoker at the time, a couple of thousand cigarettes which were a lot cheaper then; I'm not sure they are now.
If you're still determined, here's a link:
http://www.calais-guide.co.uk/wine-and-beer-outlets.html

Some years ago there were coach firms which used to pick you up at Woodside at 10'o clock on a Friday night and take you over to France by the Chunnel or ferry. There you visited a warehouse for wine or beer (3 cases of beer only) then continue into Belgium for tobacco (60x 50gm pouches) or cigs then back to France for a walk around a hypermarket then on to ferry or chunnel and back in Birkenhead Saturday night 8 or 9'0 clock

£60 for a seat
vaguely recall the firm as 5 Stars based in Liverpool

If you do go check how much stuff you can legally bring back through customs

click

I used to go over regularly when I lived further south and before they stopped true duty free.
The last time I went there was a 2 tier price - 1 for local residents and the other for UK residents which was not totally duty free. It was the same in the duty free shops at the port.
In my opinion, unless you are very local to the ferry port then I'm not sure it is worth doing anymore.

I think most of you have confirmed my suspicions of it not really being worth the trip, unless you're already going on holiday to that region or as in Chriskay's case, your employer foots the bill through work.

The limit on cigarettes is 800 per person, which from what I can gather has been reduced from 3200, and also combined with the fact that they're not as cheap there as they used to be, it's not going to save me anything.

I'm coming up to my 5 years anniversary of quitting, something I never thought I would do as I really enjoyed smoking. #just saying ;);)

Which is exactly the reason I don't intend giving up, I enjoy it too much

LOL. I'd got to the point where I seriously couldn't afford it else I'd probably still be at it!