Man arrested for ‘stealing’ 20 million mileage points from British Airways

The British Airways had earlier received complaints about mileage points of some of the fliers being redeemed illegally by unauthorised agencies in favour of other passengers.

A case has been registered under sections 420, 464, 467, 471, 120B of the Indian Penal Code and 43A, 43B, 43H, 66 and 72 of the IT Act on August 16.

Avios, the mileage points given to fliers when they buy an airline’s ticket, can be accumulated and traded to book airline tickets and hotel stay.

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According to the police, British Airways maintains data about the fliers redeeming Avios reward points.

“British Airways provided the details of the IP addresses which were used for unauthorised extraction of the Avios points. An investigation revealed that all the activities pertaining to these IP addresses were being carried out from Jhandewalan area,” said Ravindra Jadav, joint commissioner of police, Delhi Police Crime Branch.

He added that the airline has lost millions of pounds because of the racket.

After some technical surveillance, police raided Kripa Travel’s office in Jhandewalan.

Bedi allegedly admitted to the police that he had used data stolen from IT company Amadeus, which had British Airways among its clients.

“He used the data to open fake executive club accounts, using the ticket details, and then redeemed the Avios points by booking new tickets,” said the police officer.

Amadeus provides IT services for the global travel and tourism industry, including search, pricing, booking, ticketing and other processing services in real-time, to travel providers and travel agencies.

In a press statement, British Airways said, “We are assisting the police in India with an investigation into alleged fraudulent activity. We would like to reassure customers that none of our systems have been illegally accessed and no executive club members have had their data accessed or frequent flyer points stolen.”

Explaining that only British Airways had incurred the actual loss, Jadav said, “No financial loss occurred to any flier.  Whenever someone stole points from the Amadeus system, the genuine passenger could redeem his/her points after opening the executive club account.”

“When it came to the notice of the British Airways that some unauthorised persons are siphoning off the Avios/mileage points by creating the fake executive club accounts, they let the points be redeemed by the genuine fliers,” he said.