A man in China purchased a first-class plane ticket — and used it to eat a year’s worth of free meals at the VIP lounge at Xi’an International Airport.

The frequent diner purchased a first-class, fully refundable ticket aboard Eastern China Airline.

He used the ticket to gain access to the airport’s VIP lounge, where high-rolling travelers dine for free, according to a report last week in the Chinese-language newspaper Kwong Wah Yit Poh in Malaysia.

The man re-booked his first-class ticket over and over again and kept the gravy train rolling.

Eastern China Airlines officials only recently figured out the man’s scheme after noticing his single ticket being re-booked 300 times over one year, according to the newspaper report.

Airline officials admitted there was nothing they could do to stop the frequent diner.

A spokeswoman for the carrier called the man’s free-meal scheme a “rare act.”

Still, Eastern China Airlines officials confronted him, and the human meal ticket stopped chowing down.

The freeloader ended up cashing in his fully refundable ticket and getting back all his money.

Representatives for the Chinese air carrier could not be immediately reached for comment on Wednesday.

Source

It's all over the news now. But its fake.

It's been doing the rounds of the news outlets for the past few days. Not sure what it's got to do with United though...

http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2014/0...eals-for-year/

It has also been posted on Flyertalk at least four times in three different forums.

Here is one in this forum that has been closed:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...-f-ticket.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...most-year.html

I never know FT has a fiction forum.

Did anyone find out the identity of this unnamed Chinese man in this "story" yet?

Anyway, Happy Chinese New Year!

Please follow the existing thread linked above. Thanks! /Moderator