There are occasional reports from IHG Rewards Club members that have had their accounts compromise due to lax security (4 digits pins) and there was somewhat similar issue with Club Carlson this past week.
Around 650 Club Carlson members had their accounts compromised and points used for PayPal credits and electronic gift cards. According to the newspaper, the monetary value of this theft is $35,000.
You can read more about this incident on StarTribune’s website here.
Conclusion
It would be interesting to know how these hackers were able to access these affected accounts and use the points for PayPal credits and electronic gift cards.
Any loyalty program that has cash like items such as PayPal credits, electronic gift cards, flights tickets and electronic should really pay attention to these redemptions. Usually, redeeming for any items mentioned makes very little sense point value vise unless you are drowning in points are more prone to account takeovers.
These account compromises must be relatively common with loyalty programs because so many can have access to your account info (loyalty program numbers, names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses used) and use them to draw down your balance.
