Tag Archives for scam.
Video of an American tourist catching a pickpocket in the act in Venice is going viral – showing her holding the suspect by the ponytail, while the criminal screams continuously, and a crowd forms.
‘$250 roundtrips with two week advance purchase for partner airline travel’ including international and claimed that these were won as a prize and that they were transferable. But even that’s not the whole story.
A hotel manager has been indicted for stealing $150,000, and concealing the theft by fraudulently redeeming guests’ hotel points.
Guest would pay for their stay in cash, she’d go in and redeem an award night against the stay from the guest’s loyalty account, and then refund the cash to her own credit card.
Here’s a scam that savvy travelers need to watch out for. The internet, and especially Facebook Marketplace, has exploded with deals offering to sell unclaimed luggage and all of its contents at a deep discount – think $10. Sometimes they say it’s for charity, other times the $10 even includes shipping, but it’s too good to be true and these offers are not real.
A guest booked Marriott’s Hotel La Semilla and wound up getting solicited by the hotel to prepay their reservation via Paypal for a discount. Only the hotel later claimed to have no record of the payment. Did an employee of the hotel scam them? And is this something new to watch out for when you travel?
A GTT representative told me that American is blaming “the industry’s operational deficiencies on its business partners and others.” But it seems like what it’s doing is trying to clean up those deficiencies!
While “GTT values the company’s decades-long relationship with American and” wants to keep selling American Airlines tickets, maybe the emphasis ought to be on the victims of the travel scams run through their systems, rather than claiming they themselves are the victim?
Hotels, hurting during the pandemic, made rooms available at a discount for a variety of other purposes too – discount rates for ‘health care heroes’ to get away, rates for governments to use as quarantine facilities. It turns out that presented arbitrage opportunities.
A group of identity thieves posed as Wu-Tang Clan to scam hotels out of more than $100,000. They also scammed a Rolls Royce. They stiffed The Georgian Terrace Hotel for $45,000 and Hyatt Regency Atlanta for $39,000. But they were no match for a suburban Fairfield Inn.
Milwaukee airport’s security manager has been fired after falling for a scam, buying gift cards and sending them to someone in Saudi Arabia posing as her boss.
She’s the security director and she’s not careful dealing with online scammers. That’s not a good look, and she was let go for “substandard or careless job performance.” However what she ran into is very common and part of a multi-billion dollar scam that I’ve run into many times over the past three years.
A man posted a video of himself where he explains how he scammed a business class upgrade. He bought an orthopedic in an airport pharmacy and looked like he’d hurt himself and needed assistance to walk. Then he feigned difficulty sitting in his coach seat with the boot on. Cathay Pacific moved him up to business class.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
