LOT Polish Airlines embraces Bitcoins

This week, LOT Polish Airlines, one of the world’s oldest airlines still in operation, has begun accepting bitcoin payments for flight tickets.

LOT Polish Airlines now allows passengers to pay for their tickets using the Bitcoin virtual currency.

”We are open for every need of every single client”.

Poland’s national airline LOT announced August 4 that airline tickets can now be purchased with bitcoin. As early as today, the airline sells every third ticket via the website, also in the mobile version and via the application, Apart from Bitcoins, clients can pay on lot.com with a credit card, debit card and bank transfer.

More and more online merchants and companies across various industries are starting to accept bitcoin payments.

Payments with Bitcoins are easy to execute, besides they are equally secure as other payment methods.

“Many of our customers are shopping online”, commented Jiri Marek, LOT’s executive director of sales and distribution.

Ticket prices will first be calculated in a standard currency (i.e. euros, dollars or Polish zloty), then converted into bitcoins. “Many of them do the shopping online, including plane tickets”.

“It’s just a matter of time when payments with the online currency will become as popular as using credit cards today”. At the payment stage the PSP platform will convert the purchase price into Bitcoins. After the approval, the client will be redirected to their wallet, where the transaction will be finalized. “The client will be all the time on the PSP platform”.

Other airline companies that accept bitcoin payments are TAR Airlines in Mexico, Air Lituanica, and airBaltic.

“It’s very much in the airlines’ interest for the consumer to pay with bitcoin given that the airline will have cheaper fees and they know that money can’t be taken away in a fraudulent transaction”, said Akif Khan, vice president of solutions strategy at Bitnet. LOT does not accept directly, but exchanges the digital currency for fiat using an unnamed payment service provider, the media outlet said. Payments facilitator Bitnet recently made a deal with Universal Air Travel Plan (UATP), a network owned by big names like British Airways and American Airlines.