To get service for the entire flight, you simply swiped a credit card through the reader on the screen and became $3.00 poorer.

Oh, that was the thing I forgot to mention. We didn't have to pay a thing, it was free. We didn't even have to pay for headphone rental on this flight. The headphones, a pillow, and a blanket, were all already sitting there waiting for us when we boarded.

And yes, this was coach class.

On our other airbus flights (the two domestic flights were on A319 and A321 jets), they had multiple LCDs, about one every four rows, drop from the ceiling, to show everyone the same movies. We were one row behind first class on one of the flights and I got to see what the difference was between first class and coach: Their LCDs had the brightness and contrast adjusted properly, ours didn't. It was easier to watch the FC screens from a distance than to look at the one directly in front of us.

Although on those flights we had to rent the headphones. Only the transatlantic flights had free headphones. I don't understand why the same airline would charge for headphones on some flights but not on others.

On the domestic flight out, I figured out that the headphone jacks were standard 1/8" jacks and I could use my own headphones, but there was a catch: There are two mono jacks instead of one stereo jack, so if you use your own headphones you only get half the audio, and only in one ear.

But since I got extra Seinnheiser headphones at the empeg meet, I had three pair on the domestic flight back. Since they are earbuds, I plugged one set into one jack, and one set into the other jack, and hung only the working earbud from each set in each ear. Perfect stereo sound for the inflight movie on the way home. (Too bad the movie was a yawner.)