> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.thecontrail.org/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # A Company Wants You to Borrow Money for a Flight You Can't Afford Yet - URL: https://www.thecontrail.org/buy-now-pay-later-flights-bad-idea/ - Published: 2026-09-18T23:00:58.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-24T11:57:50.000Z - Description: The founder's own explanation of why he built it is the best argument against it. - Author: Zach Benitez - Tags: Editorial Laters.com is a flight booking site that lets you pay for your ticket in installments. It covers 650 airlines and partners with more than 40 lenders, among them Klarna, Afterpay and Affirm. And it puts "no credit check" on the homepage as a selling point. His own explanation of why he built it is the best argument against it, so let him make it. He describes finding a flight you want, discovering the whole fare is due today, and waiting until you've saved a little more. A few days later the price has gone up and the trip feels further away. His conclusion: don't save, because waiting costs you. Read that again as advice. You can't afford this today. Prices will rise while you try. So borrow. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/ac/ed/acedfbb2-ff9c-499b-b431-eb36d7539be1/content/images/2026/09/Screenshot-2026-09-16-at-13.11.22.png) laters.com --- ## Airlines have wanted this for years Worth saying clearly that the impulse isn't new or unique to one startup. Airlines have always wanted you to buy a ticket you can't pay for, which is why they push co-branded credit cards at you on every flight. Paying for a flight over time isn't some novel abuse. People have been doing it on credit cards for decades. What's changed is the friction. Getting a credit card requires an application, a credit check and a decision you make once, away from the checkout page. Buy now, pay later happens in the same three seconds as picking your seat, and the entire design goal is that you don't stop to think. --- ## A flight is the worst possible thing to buy this way This is the point where it stops being a general complaint about consumer credit and becomes specifically about aviation. Buy a sofa on installments and default, and there's still a sofa. A lender can repossess it, resell it, recover something. Debt attached to an object can be recovered. Default on a flight after you've already flown it, and there is nothing. Your seat was used. Your fuel was burned. The asset evaporated the moment the aircraft landed, which is why the industry calls a seat a perishable good. There's money owed for something that no longer exists in any form, and no amount of chasing recovers it. That's true of a restaurant meal too. What differs is the amount. Nobody splits a $40 dinner into four payments and gets into trouble. Long-haul fares run into hundreds or thousands of dollars, and Laters specifically promotes monthly plans of three to twelve months for larger fares. Paying for flights in installments ### What's left if you stop paying Every other installment purchase leaves something behind. A flight doesn't. Buy a sofa There's still a sofa. A lender can repossess it and resell it. Some of the money comes back, so the debt is attached to something real. Buy a flight There's nothing. The seat was used and the fuel was burned. The industry calls a seat a perishable good, and once the aircraft lands it cannot be recovered or resold. And if the airline fails, you owe two people **Your refund claim** sits with an airline that may or may not pay it, and may no longer exist. Spirit Airlines shut down in May. airBaltic filed for bankruptcy protection in September. **Your payment plan** continues on schedule regardless. Nothing pauses it because your flight stopped existing. In the company's own words **"No credit check"**Listed on the homepage as a feature. Pay-in-four plans involve no hard credit check, which also means nobody assesses whether you can afford the fare **Three to twelve month plans**Offered through Affirm and Klarna for larger fares, with interest on longer plans **"Paying later is a form of credit"**From the site's own FAQ, which also warns that missing payments may make borrowing harder or more expensive. It appears as item eleven of thirteen Laters.com is a licensed travel agent in Singapore, issues real airline tickets and processes payments through regulated partners. The lenders are established firms including Klarna, Afterpay and Affirm. Everything quoted here is published on the company's own site as of September 16, 2026. contrail.travel --- ## And then the airline might not be there This second problem is one the company can't control and doesn't mention. Airlines fail. Spirit Airlines shut down in May. airBaltic filed for Chapter 11 protection two days ago and a New York judge had to approve emergency financing yesterday to keep it flying. Both of those happened this year, in an industry where jet fuel prices have roughly doubled. If your airline collapses while you're four months into a twelve-month plan, you have two separate problems that don't cancel each other out. You have a claim against an airline that may or may not pay, and you have a debt to a lender who wants their money on schedule regardless. Nobody pauses the payment plan because your flight stopped existing. --- ## What the company gets right, and it matters I'm not going to pretend this is a scam, because it isn't and saying so would be both wrong and lazy. Laters is a licensed travel agent in Singapore and takes payments through regulated processors. Real airline tickets get issued, and customer reviews are strong, including several from people describing genuinely good support when things went wrong. Klarna, Affirm and Afterpay are the lenders rather than anyone obscure. Laters also discloses the risk in plain language. Its own FAQ states that paying later is a form of credit and that missing payments may make borrowing harder or more expensive. That's accurate and more than some competitors bother with. It's disclosure in item eleven of thirteen, underneath a homepage that says "party mode" and offers 7.5% off for paying in cryptocurrency. But it's there. --- ## Where I actually land For someone who could pay the full fare today and prefers to spread it, interest-free installments are just cashflow management and nobody needs protecting from that. That isn't who the marketing is for, though. "No credit check" is a feature aimed squarely at people whose credit wouldn't survive one. That founder's pitch is aimed at people who were saving and hadn't finished. The destination guides lead with Bali and the Maldives, which are not business trips. Flying is the one purchase where the thing you bought is gone before the bill arrives, the airline might fold before you finish paying, and nobody checked whether you could afford it in the first place. Selling credit into that gap is legal, disclosed, and still the wrong product. If the fare is more than you have, there's an answer the industry stopped saying out loud. Fly somewhere cheaper, or go later.