How Did 76,000 KrisFlyer Miles Go Missing? Singapore Airlines Investigates A Rash of Hacks
Meg Butler April 22, 2018
When 34-year-old passenger Sherie Low logged into her KrisFlyer account on April 15th, she discovered that most of her frequent flyer miles were gone — 76,000 out of 76,769 to be exact.
When she investigated further, she found that four redemptions had been made for Lufthansa flights between Mar 24 and 25 from Frankfurt, Germany to Saint Petersburg at 12,500 miles each under the names of four different individuals, all holding Russian passports.
All four had been added as nominees to her account on Mar 23, just a day before they started making redemptions.
Another 26,000 miles were converted to points for Virgin Australia’s Velocity frequent flyer program.
Screenshot of redemption nominees added to Ms Low’s account.
Ms. Low contacted the KrisFlyer hotline. A representative told her that they did not want to give her “false hope” that she would get her miles back and that they could not give her a timeline for the investigation.
So Ms. Low announced on Facebook that she would be looking to switch her loyalty to another airline and reached out to Channel NewsAsia with her story. Shortly after the Channel NewsAsia story was published, Singapore Airlines reached out to her to say that the miles that she lost were credited back to her account.
There is no word yet from Singapore Airlines on what, exactly, happened to Ms. Low’s miles. But they have released a statement suggesting that she’s not the only KrisFlyer member that this has happened to:
“Singapore Airlines can confirm that we received this complaint from our KrisFlyer member regarding the loss of her KrisFlyer miles. We are currently investigating this issue and we will be following up with the customer directly.
“Singapore Airlines is also aware that some KrisFlyer member accounts may have been compromised due to possible phishing. We are monitoring these accounts closely and will work with relevant authorities in their investigations, if required.
“We have also reached out to the affected members and advised them to take various measures to prevent further phishing. These include using stronger passwords, changing their passwords regularly, using a reliable anti-virus programme and logging in to their KrisFlyer accounts only via the official SIA website at www.singaporeair.com.”
In fact, other people have reached out on their website to say that they are missing un-refunded miles as well.
To read more of this story, go to Channel NewsAsia.
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She would have found out sooner had she informed the airline she no longer used the email address she had when she signed up
Why don't they ever go after the people that stole the points ?......Surely they have a record of the ticket numbers and names - so go arrest them !
SQ is in the wrong here but so is the passenger. I just did a redemption for a friend for the first time in my SQ account. Immediately after "nominating" her I got that email saying something like "you've added ________ if this is in error or wasn't done by you, please contact us". Well, if she's an active SQ member, why is she still using an email account that's "inactive" from over 10 years ago? It's the same as updating your address. You can't just ignore a bill because it didn't come to your new house when you didn't tell them your change of address. I do feel like SQ should have better security though, I think it's the only thing I have a "password" for that doesn't actually allow letters. It seems short-sighted at best.
She is 95% to blame by leaving a 10year old unused email address as her KrisFler contact. If she was using uptp date email. the notification would have been seen, and she could have informed SQ immediately so seats would be cancelled t+c show you are responsible for having upto date contac details, why should SQ be out of pocket when she did that. She sghou;d not have been refunded, knew that so put her issue into news
my wife had 23000 aeroplan miles used between 2 cities in china just last week. luckily she got the email that the flight was booked and canceled the booking before the flight took place. be wary of your miles. change passwords regularly. seems to be on the rise.