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Hotels a Common Target for Credit Card Hackers

SmarterTravel

There's a 95 percent chance Senior Editor Christine Sarkis is thinking about travel right now. Follow her on Instagram @postcartography and Twitter @ChristineSarkis.

Christine Sarkis is an SATW-award-winning journalist and executive editor at SmarterTravel. Her stories have also appeared on USA Today, Conde Nast Traveler, Huffington Post, and Business Insider. Her advice has been featured in dozens of print and online publications including The New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, and People magazine. She has also shared travel tips on television and radio shows including Good Morning America, Marketplace, and Here & Now. Her work has been published in the anthologies Spain from a Backpack and The Best Women's Travel Writing 2008. She is currently working on a travel memoir.

The Handy Item I Always Pack: The Trtl Pillow. It's easy to pack and comfortable, and makes it so I can actually sleep on flights.

Ultimate Bucket List Experience: Seeing the Aurora Borealis from the comfort of somewhere warm, like a glass igloo or hot spring.

Travel Motto: Curiosity is an amazing compass.

Aisle, Window, or Middle Seat: Aisle all the way.

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Add this to the list of good reasons to check your credit card bills regularly: According to Joe Sharkey in this New York Times article, hotels are a common target of credit card hackers. Based on a study released this year, 38 percent of last year’s credit card hacking cases involved hotels. Yikes.

The article mentions recent hotel breaches at chains such as Wyndham and Destination Hotels and Resorts, and notes, “Fraud experts say that hackers often steal personal data and make multiple small charges to validate a card, probe its vulnerability and test the vigilance of a cardholder before making bigger charges.”

So as a hotel guest, what can you do to protect yourself? Check your credit card statements regularly, especially after hotel stays. And shred all receipts and other documents with personal information that could be used in credit card fraud.

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Having spent three of the last seven nights in a hotel, I bet you can guess what I’ll be doing as soon as I finish writing this.

Do you have more advice for keeping your personal and credit card information safe on the road? Share it with other readers in the comments below.

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