It’s all too common for airline miles and hotel points to be stolen. However, it’s not often that a person gets arrested for this at a hotel…
Continue reading: Man Arrested At Marriott Hotel For Stealing Bonvoy Points
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
A short time ago this happened to me with a Hilton account and the thief checking in in Manchester UK , I suggested customer service to call the police and werent keen to do so....
Damn, three Marriott posts in a row? I know they're the largest hotel brand in the world, but seems a bit overkill...
Its good they allowed them to check in. It allowed the cops catch the unsuspecting thief. If check-in had been declined, the thief may have suspected something was up and made their escape.
I would assume that Marriott would make the member whole for the loss of the points
“…most hotels don’t actually do a lot to verify the identity of that person.”
I’ve never been able to check in without ID in the USA and a passport in all other countries.
@ TravelinWilly -- Oh, I meant when you call. In other words, you call the hotel and say that you're checking in but would like to add someone as a second guest. They'll almost always easily let you do that, so that's an easy way for someone to claim to be you and add someone without your permission.
@ DaBluBoi -- These just happen to be three relevant travel stories I'm seeing this morning. Sometimes there are none, sometimes there are a few, and it seems silly to artificially restrict them just because they're Marriott, no?
the same thing happened to me but in Georgia, they found the 2 people in the parking lot once I called! took months to get my points back. I was called by the DAs office as they were pressing charges and I even was asked to send in a testimony.
Reward points of any kind, are currency. Many business people consider them a perks. It's the same as robbing you on the street. They should have been arrested.
Marriott is way better than Hilton at this... My dad got his account hacked and someone used his points for a stay. We called the hotel to let them know the person staying in the room was a fake but they wouldn't do anything about it cause he was on the reservation. I called the cops too but they wouldn't go to the hotel either... At least Italy is doing it right. Hilton just let a felon stay in the hotel room.
Oh, *that!*
100% agree, I’ve NEVER been asked to verify a thing when I’ve called.
I’m looking at YOU, Hilton.
Thanks for clarifying, Ben!
Ah, The Marriott Times. Only 3 articles in two hours, when's the next one?
Quick reminder: Marriott does not honor elite benefits. They *will* steal your SNAs. They do, however, pay generous commissions to affiliates.
If you don't like it, don't read the blog. If we want to read snide comments, we'll follow Marjorie Taylor Greene.
This happened to me in 2019; 200,000 Bonvoy points were deducted for a two-night stay in a suite at the Swan hotel in Orlando. Kicker is that you can't even book those suites using points. When I called the hotel they cancelled the reservation after a day of 'research'' and I got my points back. The individual with whom I spoke inferred heavily that it was an inside job by an employee and that it was being addressed (without stating that directly).
Marriott did NOTHING in a similar situation that happened to me. Someone hacked my BA Avios account and redeemed for a same day Marriott hotel stay in Paris. I had the Bonvoy confirmation number, immediately called Bonvoy and they refused to do anything. Called hotel directly while the points thief was staying there, they also refused to do anything. BA locked my Avios account, and eventually refunded the Avios, but Marriott didn't care.
What website do you guys recommend to buy discounted hotel stays booked with stolen points?
Not sure how stealing points can be considered a crime since it is clearly stated in most loyalty programs that points has no cash value.
So in your world things like say identity theft that have no measurable "cash value" are not crimes?
I'm sure this person was arrested for *using* stolen points, and associated identity fraud of some kind.
I doubt they *stole* the points. That was almost certainly their unnamed "friend".
100% chance the reservation was made using stolen credentials to the victim's account and then sold for cheap on Telegram or other marketplace.
He's a drug dealer (I looked it up). The person who hacked the account was likely one of his customers and used the points to pay for candy. The dealer then gets an under-the-radar base of operation for a couple of days using someone else's identity. The drug trade is the new slavery. Except the whips and chains have been replaced with meth and crack.
I'll share another security issue. There are hotels (not just Marriott) that let's you link your netflix or YouTube accounts via the tv so you can access your personal content. The tv says all your info will get scrubbed when you check out..... Well I can tell you that is not always the case. I have been in rooms where I have seen the last 4 users netflix accounts still in their system and I was able to access it which to me means I probably have a pretty good back door into their account profiles and payment methods from their netflix account. This has happened twice already and I manually scrubbed these users info for them. I then informed the hotel Chain who was more interested in who I was rather than what steps I took to access the info. After a while it felt like they were suspicious of me rather than their "amazing" it infrastructure. So I didn't communicate anymore with them. So lesson here is don't link your accounts. Ditto for rental cars. Becky(who rented a car before me) transferred her entire phone's contact info the car!! Come on people. Stop helping the bad guys.
@Mark in MI. Snide remark there, Mark.
Do you know MTG? Do you want to? Thousands of your fellow Georgia citizens voted for her to clean up the mess in D.C.
Millions of $$$ being wasted and taxpayers have to pay for it. Economic refugees coming into the country and murdering people. Fentanyl coming into USA from China. You should be thankful somebody is speaking up. Respectfully submitted.
I just did the same thing with my IHG account. The police showed up to the hotel and arrested the "guests'. They were doing drugs and were on parole so they went back to prison. Really an ordeal with IHG though.
Well, of course, because the BA points were used so this needed to be dealt with BA.
??In this county alone, the man had six felony cases and nine misdemeanor cases....Why is this person on the streets?!?!
I recently made a reservation for 2 rooms in Fort Myers when I arrived they said thank you for being the highest level member and the email said I had over 300k points. I never stayed in a Marriott so I was confused. Bottom line reservation man was putting his name on reservation along with mine and he was collecting points. To collect 300k points he was giving discount room rates. I had to have manager fix problem. 2days later he only had 140k points. So he must be selling or depositing into another travel portal
Tiny D more concerned about cancel culture and making up voter fraud cases than actual law & order
Not sure, but you should plan to steal and burn. Who knows when the next devaluation will hit?
This is happening to me. Just hit my 10th fraudulent booking today in a week. Changing the pin or password has no effect because they are not logging out of the app. I would love to try to catch them but no one has actually tried to check in yet. They were talking with the front desk through the app two of the times trying to add someone to the room.