A recent incident that happened to a travel blog's editor-in-chief has caught the public's attention. Zach Honig, of the blog The Points Guy went for a vacation in Mexico last Spring and found out his IHG travel points have been used by hackers who purchased a hotel booking in Holiday Inn.
Honig was informed through an email and wondered how the transaction was possible when he could not remember any booking he made in the past months. He told Huffington Post, "I received a confirmation email for a Holiday Inn in Connecticut, booked with my IHG points, I called the hotel to make sure it wasn't a mistake, and they told me the guests had just arrived."
Protecting credit card and bank accounts are of general knowledge, but protecting airline miles have now become something a frequent flier should be aware of.
This is due to the fact that miles are now as good as cash in the event of booking a flight or a reservation at any hotel. Even if the reality is, miles points are only incentives given by airlines to their valued customers, hacking into a person's account to take advantage of the said miles are still considered a form of stealing. Aside from travel privileges, the hacker can also sell the points to others to purchase online gift cards or goods, as mentioned in the Wall Street Journal. The news site also pointed out that thousands of travel reward accounts were stolen from only from last year.
The airline and hotel reward giving company from which Honig have been stolen from is now coordinating with the latter to have him recompensated for his lost points.
Huffingpost shared some tips on how to protect one's airline and hotel reward accounts.
1. Being careful of the photos any individual posts in social network sites greatly helps. One simple click to capture a boarding pass, a ticket, airline booking papers can attract hackers to look into the person's account. A person should also refrain from posting his or her location, or where and when he or she will be traveling, this may lead to certain safety issues.
2. If changing of passwords every now and then are advised by email host sites, it can also be helpful for reward account owners. It is to be taken into consideration that hackers may think that the same password is used for all of a person's reward accounts, and thus, will try their luck at them anytime.
3. A proper and regular checking of reward accounts is a must not only to monitor the pointe being earned, but most importantly, to get updates on any activity the account is getting. An email should be set-up according to the right preferences of the owner so that important emails will not be kept in the spam folder.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
