With high inflation and high energy prices, travel of any kind has become expensive. Gas, airline tickets, meals, and even hotel rooms. It stands to reason that a savvy traveler will be looking for a bargain. In fact, 47% of searchers are willing to snatch up a perceived bargain quickly and 39% will use a booking site they have never used before. If you are one of the 94% who use online booking for trip planning, beware!
Security giant, McAfee reported that more than a third of adult American consumers have fallen pray to an online travel booking scam before a bag was packed. Sixty percent of the victims report theft of up to $1,000, while forty percent ended up losing $1,000 or more from fraudsters.
Furthermore, the research found that fifteen percent of all U.S. adults have been tricked into making payments through fraudulent platforms. and twenty-two percent have had their identity stolen while booking online. Of those, eight percent provided their passport information and 14 percent entered other personal identification information on a fake website.
One can be penny wise, pound foolish. Just be vigilant when sharing information about your hard earn money with anyone online.
Our personal preference is to deal with airlines, hotels, and car rental companies directly before using aggregators. But it is also true that reputable sites such as Google Flights, booking.com and hotels.com do offer some amazing deals from time to time. The devil with these lies in the details when it comes to refunds and disputes and so on. Again, be vigilant.
You must be logged in to post a comment.