A credit card - Visa, Mastercard, Diners or Amex are examples - would be fine. Otherwise cash, but I'm not sure that a debit card would be ok. Why not contact the airline you are flying with and then you will know the exact reply and feel reassured - it's a good question. Have a lovely holiday.

I bought some duty free perfume on a Kenya Airways flight recently and they wouldn't take debit cards - something to do with card fraud. I paid by credit card instead and they had to take down my passport details.

Debit cards are not accepted on flights because they have to be authorised by the bank to ensure there are sifficuent funds in the account. Authorisation is done electronically over phone lines. This is obviously rather difficult at 35,000ft and the reason why they aren't accepted. Credit cards are different in that they go through a credit company and you pay off the amount at the end of the month etc. The hand held machines used on flights store the card data until the end of the flight where the information is then used to make the transaction. They don't require the authorisation that debit cards do.

Darren

Thank you for the replies , it looks like we will have to carry cash then as we don't have credit cards, but that makes it a bit difficult as we're not sure what to buy until we look at the in-flight magazine, and i don't believe with FC you can view it online, then again maybe we should just buy what we wont at the duty free shops in Manchester airport
Susan

It's an 'old fashioned' idea nowdays, but if you don't have a credit card, perhaps they might accept a cheque along with a cheque guarantee card?

I'm assuming this is slightly different than using a debit card (though could stand corrected) and may be preferable to carrying around a lot of sterling you may or may not spend.

Doe

All the airlines I've flown with in recent years have taken the currency of both departure country and destination. On UK-Ireland flights, I've found that either Sterling or Euros would be accepted.

When we return from the Dom Rep we are normally able to purchase duty free on board with unused $, does anybody know what kind of rate we would get on these at the moment onboard a flight. The reason I am asking is because the exchange rate is currently really good I thought it would make more sense to purchase goods on the return using $ (hoping we would get more for our money). Does anybody know if this would be the case?

thanks in advance

They will usually offer a shockingly bad rate like $2.20 to the £1 so you would be much worse off if you did it this way and should make all purchases in Sterling (unless you have the odd last bit of currency to get rid off).

Ive flown with FC a lot and find that it works out better for both parties to use english sterling when buying stuff.
They sometimes say that if you use foreign currency they only give you back change to the nearest euro or whatever and not small coins ie cents etc if you follow.
P.S. I noticed that they sold a phonecard for a tenner, a underwater camera for a fiver, a anti mozzie keyring thing for a fiver and Britney Spears Midnight fantasy for 18 quid.and SJParker Lovely approx 21.00 quid and a Kylie Darling for a similar price.

Cheques are now being fased out of useage by shops, sp soon other place will follow suit.

Cheques will still used as payment for sevices rendered by trademens ect.