This is your final warning: don’t buy airline vouchers online
Thinking of buying a cheap airline ticket voucher online? Oh no you don’t.
The latest MarkMonitor Brandjacking Index confirms what readers of this blog already know. The fraudulent sale of ticket vouchers online is a growing problem.
There is a brisk online trade in airline ticket vouchers, averaging more than 160 listings daily with deep discounts of more than 80% under their face value. Interestingly, this trade flourishes despite the fact that most airlines have a policy that these vouchers are non-transferable.
To test its theory, MarkMonitor bought several vouchers. “To no surprise, the voucher numbers could not be validated by the airline when we tried to use them to pay for a flight,” it concluded.
That’s not all. Apparently, we haven’t seen the worst of it.
With the recent airline industry bankruptcies we may expect to see an increased incidence of online fraud related to refunds, credits and vouchers.
Unfortunately, people are still falling for this scam. Just last week, I heard from another traveler who had bought several hundred dollars worth of vouchers and wanted to know if they would be usable. (They might be, but it wouldn’t preclude the airline from coming after you once the flight was over to collect the fare.)
Remember, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.
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Comments
6 Responses to “This is your final warning: don’t buy airline vouchers online”
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I don’t think this deal is too good to be true, I’m trying it out, http://www.petergreenberg.com/contest/
Its too bad people scam others by selling something thats not valid or non transferrable. That makes it so its impossible for people to sell legitimate vouchers. For instance i have one of those vouchers from USAirways for giving up a first class seat on an oversold seat and taking a later flight. It says right on there that its transferrable with valid pin. What if i decide i dont want to use it? I definatley cant sell it because no one would trust me that its real
I live in San Francisco and just last week, I bought a voucher from a guy in New York through Craigslist. I flew to New York two days later non-stop on American for a total of $325. Just wanted to say that it can work out in a pinch if you do your due dilligence.
Just like anything else, it is better to purchase from the issuing organization than a third party.
I’ve bought discounted vouchers three times off craigslist and it worked, although I input a lot of time into making sure I did not get scammed. A conference call with the airline is a good option, and a phone conversation with whoever you are buying from is important.
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