Miral Destinations, a subsidiary of Miral, and the trusted one-stop trade and promotional partner for Saadiyat Island and Yas Island Abu Dhabi, took part in World Travel Market 2023, a leading travel and tourism platform held in London from 6 – 8 November. With over 35,000 industry professionals from 184 countries in attendance, Miral Destinations highlighted key milestones for Abu Dhabi’s award-winning destinations at the three-day event, further expanding its portfolio of leisure, culture and entertainment offerings with the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with industry players in UK market. The business collaborations aim to promote Yas Island Abu Dhabi in UK market to generate bookings, where travelers can stay longer at Yas Island Abu Dhabi and experience the variety of world-class theme parks, myriad entertainment options, sporting facilities, shopping, dining and upmarket hotels.
Why Hackers Are Targeting Your Airline Points and Miles—And How to Protect Them
18.10.2023 - 14:41 / afar.com / Gary Leff
For many travelers, airline miles and hotel points are extremely valuable—they are a type of currency that can be used to book flights and overnights around the world.
But for many people, the possibility of someone hacking into their frequent flier account has likely never crossed their mind. However, experts say travelers would be smart to monitor their frequent flier activity as closely as they do their bank and credit card accounts.
According to Kurt Long, founder of cybersecurity company Bunkr, theft of points and miles has been on the rise in recent years, in part because of major breaches at companies like Starwood/Marriott, MGM, Star Alliance, and OneWorld (where cybercriminals gained access to travelers’ information, including usernames and passwords) and in part because people weren’t traveling as much.
“Most people don’t frequently check their account balances, and during the pandemic, they also weren’t spending their points,” Long said. “At the same time, rewards programs doled out tons of points, so there are more out there to target.”
He added that the security laws around information held in the travel sector tend to be fairly lax compared to regulated industries, like banking, wealth management, and healthcare, and they face far fewer penalties in the case of breaches, so there aren’t as many safeguards for travelers.
According to Gary Leff, who writes about frequent flier points and miles on his blog, ViewFromTheWing.com, there’s “a general belief that points and miles theft is on the rise, but it’s difficult to get concrete data to back that up. Many loyalty programs keep their actual fraud levels close to the vest.”
Airlines don’t provide many details about the measures they’re taking to prevent theft of customers’ points and miles. When asked, a representative from Delta said simply, “Information security is certainly something our teams are working on improving for our customers.” Similarly, a representative from American Airlines said, “Data security is a top priority as our customers trust us with their personal information when booking travel and as part of our loyalty program, AAdvantage. We continue to enhance our security measures on aa.com for our members to further protect their personal information.”
Once hackers have access to your account, they may use your points and miles for actual hotel stays and flights or cash the points out at a participating retailer, like Amazon.
“Criminals also may redeem the points themselves and then sell the rewards,” said Steve Weisman, author of Identity Theft Alert and a professor at Bentley University, where he teaches about white-collar crime. He pointed to a case where Russian hackers did this in 2017 by using British Airways miles
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