Booking Scams On The Rise: How To Spot Them

Don’t let your plans for wander lusting get hijacked by scams, keep an eye out with these must-know pointers

- Sue May/Zafigo

According to Time, there are about eight hotel reservations made in the U.S. every second. As the number of online hotel bookings increase, so does the rate of booking scams. A study by the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) in 2015 even found that 15 million hotel bookings are affected by deceptive rogue affiliates annually, translating to about roughly $1.3 billion (RM5 billion) going to fake bookings.

According to an AHLA research released in April, one in four American travellers have reported to being duped in 2016, a dramatic rise from the just 6 percent of travellers from 2015. Here’s how it works; you type in a certain hotel name into the search bar and you click on one of the top results. The website looks legitimate and so you decide to make a booking. The payment is non-refundable but you’re fairly certain you’ll be making the trip, so you enter your card details. You arrive at your hotel on your booked date, but the staff says there’s no sign of your booking.