Man flies Tinder girlfriend to China for date they planned in their first conversation

Tinder has an estimated 50m users with 1bn matches made

Thomas and Grace met on Tinder and planned their trips to China and New Zealand in their first chat (Vimeo/Thomas Gallagher)

A man flew his Tinder-match girlfriend to China for a date they discussed in their first ever conversation.

Thomas Gallagher matched with his now girlfriend, who he identified only by her first name, Grace, with the dating app Tinder during a business trip in Chicago.

The pair have been in a long-distance relationship for six months but only met in person after more than a month of chatting on the application.

Mr Gallagher joined Tinder while he was bored, he told Reddit, under his username Lagger.

"I was killing time swiping while traveling for work," he said.

"Just out of curiosity/boredom I messaged a girl about one of her travel photos."

In fact, he only joined the dating app as an ego booster, Mr Gallagher admitted.

"Honestly Tinder was more of a 'hot or not' validation/confidence booster," he said.

"I never was expecting or wanting to actually meet anyone on there. I'm so happy I did though."

In their first conversation, Mr Gallagher told Grace that he would take her to China, where he occasionally travels for work, if she took him to New Zealand, having been attracted by her travel photos.

Grace agreed - and Mr Gallagher shared a video of their flight to Beijing.

"We both laugh at it still... that this is 'our story'," Mr Gallagher said of the couple. "I guess everyone wants some 'princess bride' story about their relationship. But some people meet on Tinder. As terrible as that sounds."

"Now I'm worried the bar is set too high lol. If this is just 6 months... We haven't covered any significant milestones of holidays and were already flying around the world. But seriously though, I can't wait for whatever is next."

"I honesty have not been happier."

The couple have a trip planned to New Zealand for February.

As one Reddit user put it: "If she stays with you after all that vertical video, better keep her."