Wierd credit message-(possible phishing?)

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Logged on to my email account this morning and found two messages from AS. The first titled "Your Credit Certificate from Alaska Airlines" told me that there would be a second message containing a PIN to be able to open the certificate. The second one is labeled "PIN for your alaskaaair.com Credit Certificate".

When I opened the message, the credit is for a whopping $0.40. Yup, forty cents.

Both sites look totally legitimate but for forty cents I am not going to open up my account to deposit it. Something is phishy here.
Anyone else get one of these?
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Lots of airline phishing going on. Some given on DL site. I would not have opened it.
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Quote: Lots of airline phishing going on. Some given on DL site. I would not have opened it.
I did not open my AS account so there is no way they could access the info there.
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I may be wrong but I was under the impression that just opening a bad attachment can cause big problems. Doesn't sound like it was an attachment though.
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Quote: I may be wrong but I was under the impression that just opening a bad attachment can cause big problems. Doesn't sound like it was an attachment though.
No, there was no attachment. It contained a link to the site to enter the PIN.

Smelled phishy to me too...
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If so, that's a really well-constructed phishing scam, because that's exactly the same procedure AS uses when sending someone a gift certificate or GARR credit. Check the email address: it should be from [email protected]. The "View Certificates" button (if you hover above it) should read https://www.alaskaair.com/certificat...t.aspx?gccode= followed by a bunch of code. If the link doesn't match (i.e. it's something like http://alaskagiftcertificates.xhrt.ru), then it probably is a phishing scam, and definitely delete.

That all said, I probably wouldn't bother with any of this over 40 cents (although I would truly doubt a phisher would put out a 40-cent certificate, since most recipients would probably ignore that--they'd be more likely to put an irresistible amount like $100 or something), but a perfectly safe way for you to obtain this credit (if it is valid) would be to open your MyAccount on your own (i.e. not through the link in the email--use http://www.alaskaair.com/myaccount), go to your MyWallet, and choose the option to deposit a gift certificate and enter the code. If you're worried about malicious code in the email doing something nefarious, print the certificate out (or copy/paste the code and PIN into a plain-text Notepad document) and sign in to your account and enter the codes after closing the email. Simply entering a code into your MyWallet--even if it's an invalid one generated by a phisher--won't do anything to give anyone access to your account. The danger is clicking a link in the email and not recognizing that it's a redirect to a nefarious site where you might reveal your login information (or, less commonly, opening an attachment that would compromise your system).
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Quote: If so, that's a really well-constructed phishing scam, because that's exactly the same procedure AS uses when sending someone a gift certificate or GARR credit.
But why would AS bother with a 40 cent cert? It just seems wierd.
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Quote: But why would AS bother with a 40 cent cert? It just seems wierd.
If it is AS, I'd have to guess that it's somehow automated - perhaps you did a schedule change that changed an obscure tax or fee, and now an automatic audit discovered a $0.40 error in your favor...
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