In-Flight Entertainment, No Credit Card Needed

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Passengers who want to buy entertainment while flying Southwest Airlines will no longer need to retrieve their wallets first.

The Dallas-based carrier announced this week that Pay With Amazon is available on its aircraft equipped with Wi-Fi.

So Southwest passengers now have the option to purchase access to Wi-Fi, messaging apps and movies using Pay With Amazon, which is Amazon.com’s competitor to PayPal.

Passengers who choose this option will be directed to log into Southwest’s in-flight entertainment portal with their Amazon account credentials — rather than pulling out a credit card and entering their card information — to complete their purchases.

A Southwest spokesperson tells CNN Money:

“We saw an opportunity to provide something customers are accustomed to using.”

Southwest’s in-flight entertainment portal can be accessed via an Internet browser on laptops, tablets and smartphones, according to the company’s website.

The entertainment portal provides passengers access to:

  • TV channels and on-demand TV episodes (free)
  • Satellite-based Wi-Fi ($8 per day)
  • Messaging apps like iMessage, WhatsApp and Viber ($2 per day)
  • Movies ($5 per movie)
  • NFL RedZone ($4 per day)

Do you spend money on entertainment options like these when flying? How would you prefer to pay for them? Let us know in a comment below or on our Facebook page.

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