http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-08-09/a-travel-hack-mystery-how-can-you-redeem-stolen-airline-miles
By Justin Bachman
Bloomberg Businessweek
August 09, 2013
Hackers love credit card numbers, sure, but frequent flier miles? US
Airways (LCC) is notifying some members of its Dividend Miles loyalty
program that miles have been stolen from some 7,700 compromised accounts.
The breach was discovered on July 12, the airline said in a regulatory
filing mandated under a North Carolina identity-protection law. US
Airways’s largest hub is in Charlotte.
But when it comes to miles theft—a crime that has historically been
committed by airline employees or travel agents—making a clean getaway
with the loot is exceedingly difficult. Award tickets and upgrades must
have a passenger’s name, and merchandise bought with the stolen miles must
be delivered somewhere. "Every way I sort of turn in thinking about this,
it just ends up being kind of a bad way to go from the standpoint of the
thief," says Tim Winship, editor of FrequentFlier.com. "I’m kind of at a
loss here as to kind of what a viable way of using the miles would be."
One option would be to sell the award tickets and put them in the names of
people who believe their US Airways flight is legitimately purchased,
although Winship points out that the method would still leave the
possibility of tracing the transaction back to the thief. "There’s also
the pressure of time," he adds, "because you probably realize at some
point that this is going to be discovered pretty quick."
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