However, with holiday scams tripling in the first half of 2024, you need to be vigilant for familiar issues like fake booking listings and phishing emails aiming to get your personal details.
The rise of AI means there is another wave of hurdles to jump over before landing on a safe holiday booking.
As scammers become more comfortable with the unavoidable beast that is AI, new practices are entering the holiday scam world that you need to avoid.
Christoph C Cemper, founder of AI development company AIPRM, said a false sense of urgency “is the top red flag for any kind of scams, including those for booking trips and holidays”.
Cemper said: “Nowadays, nearly anything can be faked with AI, so if it is ‘too’ well written, ‘too’ good to be true in the offer, or ‘too nice’ in pictures, then I would be especially careful.
Wellness and wellbeing holidays: Travel insurance is essential for your peace of mind
Out of the pandemic lockdowns, there’s a greater emphasis on wellbeing and wellness, with
Sponsored by Post Office
“The most common form of AI scam is a phishing ‘offer’ that lures the user into providing their personal or payment details too soon/too early based on vague promises that seem too good to resist. Such impulse actions are used to harvest the data as quickly as possible, without much to do once the data is revealed.”
As with any phishing scam, he recommends never clicking on a suspicious link or sending sensitive information through unsolicited emails or texts and always checking the email address of the sender.
“If in doubt, you should contact the airline, hotel, or travel agency directly”, he said.
Cemper added: “If you think you have fallen victim to a scam, as painful as it is, any kind of revealed information needs to be rendered useless.
“You can hardly move to another place, so fake e-commerce orders can still happen, but locking down your credit card is the first and most simple thing to do. Contacting your bank as soon as possible is essential.”
To help you avoid festive fraudsters, we’ve run through the top AI travel scams to look out for and how to spot them.
Chatbots
AI-powered chatbots are used by scammers to impersonate customer service representatives and will offer huge discounts on flights, hotels, or holiday packages. These bots can appear while you are online and will usually ask for sensitive personal information or prompt users to pay upfront for non-existent trips.
AIPRM suggests that to avoid falling victim, verify any deals or offers you find online through official travel websites and avoid providing payment information through unfamiliar channels. Double-check all details and confirm through official customer service numbers or emails before finalising any travel booking.
AI-generated airline reviews
Tripadvisor has flagged two million reviews on its website as being fake in the last year. So, scammers have used AI tools like ChatGPT to generate hundreds of positive reviews of non-existent locations to trick travellers into choosing that destination.
It’s useful to cross-reference your hotel regardless of whether it has plenty of five-star reviews or not. But if a place has an unusually high number of extremely positive reviews posted in a short period of time, it’s likely to have been generated by fraudsters using AI. Authentic reviews tend to be more balanced, including both positive and constructive feedback.
Itineraries
Did you know you can even plan your holiday with AI now? There are apps on the market, including Vacay, Guide Geek and Mindtrip, that are designed to assist you with timings and the best places to visit while you’re away.
But fraudsters are taking advantage of this technology to create their own professional-looking versions. These fake itineraries often feature attractive holiday packages that promise an unforgettable vacation at an unbeatable price, with AI-generated images used to promote false activities, making everything seem enticing. Once you send a deposit or full payment, you might find that your dream holiday doesn’t exist at all.
AIPRM notes that the key to spotting the fake from the real deals promoted on planners is to check for missing or mismatched details on the images. AI-generated images are known to have imperfections like unnatural lighting or blurry areas.
