I tried this for a while, marking such tests as production compatible. They relied on test records made for the purpose, sometimes copied to other environments

I tried this for a while, marking such tests as production compatible. They relied on test records made for the purpose, sometimes copied to other environments to make the tests. For 3rd parties with test modes like Stripe you can get E2E, or if the cost of the test is low. Some safety controls to avoid running non-prod-safe tests are wise. Another alternative is using anonymized prod copies outside prod. Possibly even mocking 3rd parties to behave like prod, happy, sad, etc.