In one of the most literal expressions of the phrase “meal ticket” that you’ll probably ever hear, a man in China was able to parlay his single first-class ticket on Eastern China Airlines into a full year of free meals.

Sure, it’s expensive to fly first-class, but from the sound of this report in the Kwong Wah Yit Poh newspaper (via MyFoxDC.com because I do not speak the language there) it paid off for this crafty consumer. Not that we condone scamming anything free out of anyone, of course.

All he had to do was flash his ticket to the lounge staff on the day he was scheduled to fly. Once inside, he did what anyone in an airport lounge loves to do (besides lounge, of course) — he snacked on tasty food, ate his fill and enjoyed the amenities.

But then instead of getting on his flight, he’d simply change the departure to the next day… when he’d repeat the process all over again with a newly issued ticket.

Somehow he was able to get away with this for months upon months, until staff members finally caught on that the itinerary for the man had been postponed over 300 times in the year.

As soon as the airline got a whiff of his shenanigans, the man canceled his ticket before it expired and snagged a full refund, to boot. A spokeswoman for Eastern China Airlines said simply that the company had no way to stop such a “rare act.”

Man uses one first-class ticket to get free airline lounge meals for a year [MyFoxDC.com]