Anyone ever seen Breitling watches on sale/discount/christmas bargain in previous years? This will be my first christmas here so I don't know. Looking to pick up one without collapsing from sticker shock, if possible.

cheers,

There is no official sale. Shops can give upto 40% off on all major brands ( thats their margin) depending on how badly they need to churn their inventory.

The very best chance is to wait until the January sales are on, when all the dealers are a little more susceptible to bargaining. Breitling have recently hugely increased their prices, so you may find that the dealers don't have very much flexibility on new models, especially since they are suffering supply shortages of several models. One might suspect, if one were of a suspicious nature, that Breitling are squeezing the supply to keep prices up.

There are occasional good deals at the airport duty free shops so it could be worthwhile flying to Frankfurt (for example) for an afternoon.

It's slightly OT, but I'm curious why Breitling, specifically?

Thanks! I am looking for a slightly older model - from the navitimer series. my partner's grandfather owned one so I guess partly for sentimental reasons and yes its a beautiful watch.

The prices aren't quoted on the breitling website. Any sites I can get prices in CHF?

http://www.from-zurich-with-watches....ng_prices.html

only a guide...

http://www.lesambassadeurs.ch/

There is an online dealer in Cham that may be able to help you find what you want - you'll need to get in touch with them through their site, or call them up:

http://www.timeofswitzerland.com/

Disclaimer: I haven't used them myself.

The short answer is - No.

The luxury brands pretty much never go "on sale" so to speak. On top of that, the authorised dealers here almost never give a discount. It's almost unheard of for them to do it. If you're lucky you might be able to swing an extra year of warranty, but otherwise the dealers here don't really budge.

I don't think the swiss really do "bartering" in any case. To be honest, you're better off buying Swiss watches outside of Switzerland.

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post links to dealers, but I have used an online dealer based in England that do discounts, and on top of it, they take off the 20% VAT and you only have to pay the Swiss tax upon its arrival (which I think is about 8%). Took about a week for the bank transfer to go through and they delivered in a couple of weeks.

I can post the link if it is allowed, otherwise pm me.

Not that I'm an old hand and the mods may correct me, but I'm pretty sure in this context it's ok. I'd also be interested to see the link, please (though not for Breitling).

http://www.swisswatchesdirect.co.uk/

they specialise in 4 brands, though you can make a request for pretty much anything and they will have a look around for you. I've bought a Breitling and an Omega straight through the website, and an IWC after emailing them a request.

The only downside is that they only accept bank transfers from abroad.

Sounds logical to me. "Cheap(er) luxury" can't be much of a luxury in the first place. Sorry OP.

You're more likely to see them on sale after Christmas than in the run up to

I know they sponsor aviation and have a groovy line of advertising, but I can't stand the current range of Breitling watches. My old 1990s Navitimer is still OK, but the word on the street is that the internal components are some of the cheapest put into Swiss watches. Ant watchmakers care to add to this....?

You have to be more specific regarding cheap components in Swiss watches, brand, name model?

I can give you one fresh example.

Panerai has a high end sport watches line where they use top grade movements and sell in the range of 10s of thousands dollars. For this kind of money you can get high quality, in-house, COSC movement. Panerai in it's recent LE watch the model 318 put a 500 dollar cheap, low grade Unitas movement. This was discovered when somebody opened the movement and thought had bought a fake watch, only to realize that all the 150 limited edition models came with this movement.

http://www.network54.com/Forum/35339...terious+PAM318

There are many who do the similar, Hublot for example. They use heaviy modified ETA movements that you can also find in 500 USD Tissot.

I like what Bell&Ross have put out. I only own one BR03 model though and I understand they have to pay another manufacturer for the face design patent?