Air Miles Under Siege : From stolen cards to stolen memories, travel fraud hits GCC flyers where it hurts most

TDT | Manama

Email : editor@newsofbahrain.com

Travel fraud is no longer confined to stolen credit cards or shady booking websites. Fraudsters have found a new currency in the GCC’s air miles and loyalty programs, leaving frequent travelers across Bahrain, Dubai, and the wider region increasingly exposed.

Airlines and online travel agencies are battling impersonation scams and account takeovers that now cause as much damage to trust as they do to wallets. A recent case in Dubai saw a €16,000 fraudulent booking intercepted, underscoring how lucrative these scams have become.

Loyalty shift
Jason Lane-Sellers, director of fraud and identity at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, warned that loyalty schemes have become “a major currency for fraud.” Their open design, meant to encourage usage, makes them easy to exploit. Attackers can discreetly transfer or cash out points, even cancel flights, leaving victims to discover losses only after years of accumulation.

Regional target
He noted that fraudsters are increasingly turning their attention to the GCC, where airlines manage millions of international members and extensive partner networks. With expats forming a large share of the population and the region serving as a global hub, loyalty fraud here offers criminals a particularly rich prize.

Stolen memories
The harm goes beyond financial loss. Lane-Sellers described how one frequent flyer lost hundreds of thousands of points when fraudsters canceled birthday flights just days before departure. Such cases, he said, erode customer trust and damage airline reputations built over decades.

Early defense
According to him, the best defenses lie in catching fraud before the payment stage. “Organizations need to authenticate every customer interaction,” he said, stressing the need to distinguish humans from bots, verify identity, and ensure customers act freely. He pointed to technologies such as digital identity validation, behavioral intelligence, and machine learning as crucial in this effort.

As GCC travelers prepare for the next busy holiday season, Lane-Sellers cautioned that loyalty points are now as valuable as cash, and protecting them will require vigilance and stronger regional cooperation.