Beijing: In a bizarre case, a Chinese man bought a first-class plane ticket and re-booked it 300 times to have free meals at the VIP lounge of an airport. The frequent diner purchased the first-class, fully refundable ticket aboard Eastern China Airline and re-booked his ticket over and over again to have free meals.

He used the ticket to gain access to the Xi'an International Airport's VIP lounge, where high-rolling travellers dine for free, according to a report in the Chinese-language newspaper Kwong Wah Yit Poh in Malaysia. The man flashed his ticket to the lounge staff at the Shaanxi province airport before his trip and ate a meal just like any first class traveller. Instead of getting on to the flight, he changed his flight's departure to another day. The next day he would show up with his newly issued ticket for the revised date, eat and again change his ticket date. He did this over and over again.

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. They admitted there was nothing they could do to stop the frequent diner, the New York Daily News reported.

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

Eastern China Airlines officials confronted him and the meal ticket was stopped. The freeloader ended up encashing his fully refundable ticket and getting back all his money.