British Airways Executive Club accounts hacked: What to do next

March 27, 2015

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I received a tweet this morning from @Frenchie2Kiss, asking me if my British Airways Executive Club account was intact because apparently his 230,000 Avios balance was wiped out. What’s more, apparently he’s not the only one this has happened to. I immediately logged into my Award Wallet account and updated the balance on every Executive Club account I manage for myself and my family. Thankfully, everything is intact. To be safe, I also logged into each individual account and double-checked each Avios balance and found that everything was ok.

Next, I checked Flyertalk where I came across a thread dedicated to this situation. British Airways is aware of the problem, which is apparently part of a wide-spread hack. On Twitter @British Airways provided the following response to a follower who had her Avios balance wiped out:

If your Avios balance has disappeared, check your email for an update on how to reinstate your balance. If you want to be proactive, I’d contact them via Twitter since that generally seems to be the most efficient method of communication. Especially since I’m sure their phone lines are blowing up right now. Some people have reported they can’t login to their Executive Club accounts. This is because British Airways is locking people out as a precautionary measure.

If your Executive Club account has not been hacked, I strongly advise you to change your password to be safe. This situation reminds me of when my Club Carlson account was hacked a year ago. After I wrote the post, a few people emailed me saying the same thing had happened to them. And that their account information was obtained through Award Wallet. So while I praised Award Wallet for notifying me of my balance dropping, they may have been the reason my account was hacked in the first place.

Club Carlson was quick to reinstate the points and I’ll continue to use Award Wallet to track my point balances. However until the source of the account wipe-outs has been identified, I would advise against providing your new Executive Club password to Award Wallet.

Are you among those who had their British Airways Executive Club accounts hacked?

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14 responses to “British Airways Executive Club accounts hacked: What to do next”

Jessica

March 27, 2015

I just tried to log-in to my BA account and I get the following Error Message:

“We are not able to recognise the membership number that you have supplied. Please check and re-enter.”

I am positive that I entered the create membership number.

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1. Ariana Arghandewal
  
  March 27, 2015
  
  They’ve been freezing people’s accounts as a safety precaution. Be sure to check your email, since they will be sending out instructions on how to get back in.
  
  Reply
SethM

March 27, 2015

Scared the Hell out of me.. Checked and have my AVIOS intact as of now .:) Seems some auditing is going on..took a screenshot.. Just in case…Lots of hacking going on these past couple of months… My account in BigCrumbs was hacked which lead them to hack my account in CardPool..Changed all my Passwords not to be same across multiple accounts and Websites.. … . Netflix Account got hacked as well but didn’t know till i was tinkering with my Netflix account to see if could stream english language shows instead of Spanish for my Kids while on vacation in Cancun .. and some gentleman across the Atlantic Pond in UK was happily streaming TV shows for 2 months. Fixed that..Around the same time in Cancun a month ago got alerts from Chase that Chase Biz and Hyatt CC had some minimal mysterious charges. Had to be issued new Cards.
That probably has to do with Chase getting hacked and there was a story about it couple of months ago..

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-executive-club/1666639-27-mar-large-numbers-baec-accounts-being-locked-zeroed-out-audit-ex-gratia.html

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1. Ariana Arghandewal
  
  March 27, 2015
  
  They are really coming after you, huh? Hopefully that’s the end of getting hacked for you. Some gentleman named Batman added himself to my Netflix account and kept bumping me off so he could watch his shows at the same time as me. The nerve! Netflix locked him out eventually.
  
  By the way, this isn’t an audit, according to BA. They’ve just been hacked and will be reinstating Avios.
  
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  1. SethM
    
    March 27, 2015
    
    Tell me about it… Forgot to tell you they drained money from my Starbucks Card. I normally get a alert when the balance changes but i was taking a small nap at around 5-6 pm PST. Got my Card Balance Reinstated. For all those accounts my password was the same. So they did hop on from site to site to see if those credentials worked at other places.. My password was very strong and complicated to start with…but lesson learnt.
    
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    1. Ariana Arghandewal
      
      March 27, 2015
      
      These hackers are getting more and more sophisticated, bypassing difficult passwords. The same thing happened to me at Starbucks and it took a while to get the $300 they stole back, but now I don’t have a cc card registered with Starbucks anymore.
      
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Lea

March 27, 2015

They must be desperate. They took all 193 of my Avios!

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1. Ariana Arghandewal
  
  March 27, 2015
  
  Lol! Every point counts.
  
  Reply
Pam

March 27, 2015

Booked a paid BA flight yesterday and all was well. Noticed this morning that my account was down to 0, and my membership number is no longer recognized. Next checked my dad’s account. 0 balance, membership number not recognized. I tried calling and was on hold for over 45 minutes and finally gave up figuring it was maintenance issues. Good to know it was a hack and I just tweeted BA.

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1. Ariana Arghandewal
  
  March 27, 2015
  
  It’s a good thing you redeemed your miles in time. I can only imagine the stress some people are going through when trying to book a last-minute award, only to find their miles are gone.
  
  Reply
  1. Pam
    
    March 27, 2015
    
    I didn’t redeem any miles. Had 70,000 yesterday, today none. My dad’s balance hacked as well.
    
    Tweeted BA at 1:30pm, no response.
    
    Reply
aroundtheworldineightydollars

March 27, 2015

I am down by 130000 avios!!!

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1. Ariana Arghandewal
  
  March 27, 2015
  
  Fingers crossed they take care of this asap.
  
  Reply
Rich

March 27, 2015

Over 100k Avios wiped out! Could not access my account using my normal login info, so I reset password and was able to login. Shows Ex-Gratia with all points being deducted.

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