Dishonest Travel Agencies

According to the Austin-American Statesman, a travel agency in Plano, TX has allegedly been stealing from its customers. According to the former employee who blew the whistle, agents at the family-owned business reassigned unused airline tickets and took award miles from clients’ tickets for their own personal use.

Reports the Statesman:

Business travelers often book nonrefundable tickets but change their plans. They then forget about them or wrongly assume the tickets have become worthless. The tickets, however, sometimes can be exchanged for vouchers for future flights. And while those vouchers are supposed to be made out to the ticket holders or their companies, an agent may be able to persuade the airline to reissue the ticket to the agency.

As for the rewards, airlines offer incentive programs for small businesses that work a lot like frequent-flier miles. If a small business does not have an account, an agent may be able to fill in another number and collect that client’s rewards….

The start of the year is the ideal time for business travelers to determine that all is in order with their ticket refunds and reward programs. Sometime within the next few days, end-of-year spending reports from corporate travel agencies will be dispatched.

Most business travelers give those reports a cursory once-over. But it may be wise to give it a closer read, possibly even to pull out a report for your business airline rewards and airline ticket purchases and take a few moments to reconcile them.

If you don’t, you may end up paying for a travel agent’s next vacation and not even know it.