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The One Thing You Should Never Do With Your Boarding Pass

You’re at the gate. You’ve got your boarding pass. You’re heading somewhere exciting and you just can’t wait until you get there to share the news with your friends on social media. So, you snap a picture of your boarding pass and post it to Facebook. Harmless, right?

Maybe not.

Because the information printed on your boarding pass actually reveals a lot more than you think.

Boarding Pass Don’ts

Your boarding pass shows your full name, ticket number, and booking code. Anyone who has this information could easily get access to your booking, gaining personal information such as your phone number. In 2020, the former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott was hacked after posting a picture of his boarding pass on Instagram. The hacker was able to see Abbott’s passport number, phone number, and even conversations that Abbott had had with airline staff.

Even if you’ve blocked out your name and booking code on your post, hackers can still gain information from a picture of your pass. As explained by KrebsonSecurity, there are websites that can read the barcodes on your boarding pass and provide someone else access to your travel information—your phone number, frequent flyer number, and information not only about the flight in question but also all future flights booked through the same number.

With access to your boarding pass, someone could even change your seat on the plane, cancel any future flights, and reset your account PIN.

This applies to more than just plane travel—a cruise passenger shared her ticket (which included her booking reference number) in a photo on Facebook, and someone used that information to cancel her cruise 48 hours before departure.

You may love your friends, but would you trust everyone you know on Facebook or Instagram with your private travel information? Didn’t think so.

The takeaway here: Don’t post pictures of your boarding pass on social media.

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