[kyungchul]

Getting a flight in a couple weeks and it's reminded me of a method I use to get free food, drink, etc. on a plane.

All you need is a bank card that you no longer use which hasn't got an arranged overdraft, might even work with a bank card for a closed account but I haven't tried that yet, will give it a go and report back.

Just pay for your stuff as normal with the card, all being well the payment will go through and the flight attendant will be on their way. You're probably wondering how the payment has gone through when there's no money in the account but that's because the card reader doesn't actually process the transaction until the plane lands, so by the time they realise your card got declined you'll be well on your way. The airline will keep trying to take the payment over the coming weeks/months but as long as you have no money in there the transaction will fail.

Now I don't know what would happen if you used this method to buy hundreds of pounds worth of perfume, jewellery, etc. on the plane, maybe they would try and charge the account you booked the flight with or report you to authorities, I've only ever used it to by food and drink, never really exceeded £50.

I know some more expensive airlines have wifi on board so I doubt it would work with them but I can vouch for it working on budget airlines such as Easy Jet and Ryanair.

When is this last time you tried this? It seems odd it wouldn't process in this day and age when pretty much every flight has WiFi onboard.

Please report back after you give it another go! I will probably take a vacation in a month or two and will have some long ass flights. Would be great to get free stuff onboard, especially considered how they rip off passengers with their ridiculous pricing!

I think it depends on the airline. Yes, proper airlines have WiFi on board, but more budget options in Europe (Ryanair, Wizzair, some others probably) definitely do not have WiFi as they fly old Boeing 737's which they bought after 9/11 for a huge discount. Meaning, this method could potentially work on them.

This method has worked for me on US/domestic Alaska, Southwest, United, and Delta flights in the last month to 2 months. It doesn't need to be a "budget" airline.