Southwest Passenger Posts Her $1,000-Plus Voucher Online—Strangers Book Flights, Leave Her $6.07

A woman was super excited to get a denied boarding voucher from Southwest Airlines. She couldn’t imagine her good fortune getting over $1,000 in future travel to take a later flight. So she posted a photo of her voluntary denied boarding voucher on Threads. I didn’t realize anybody actually read Threads, but enough did because several people used the voucher. First, one person booked a ticket. Then somebody else did. And someone else, until there was just $6.07 left. People say not to post photos of your boarding pass, and that’s true. They have things on them like your frequent flyer number. With the number and your name, it’s often possible to do things with your account – especially through social engineering talking with an agent. Posting a Southwest Airlines voucher is equally a bad idea. People might spend it for you! Fortunately, Southwest Airlines made good, giving the woman a fresh credit, and cancelled those tickets that had been booked. Whether they’ll be doing more than that to the people who booked travel using stolen funds is not yet clear. LUV vouchers are transferable. Spending them requires just the voucher number and security code. But why would anyone think they could book future-dated travel using a voucher that isn’t theirs and get away with it? Seems strange! I suppose someone might have though they could book travel with the voucher, then cancel that ticket and retain a credit and maybe laundering that way would cover their tracks? Still, seems like a very bad idea! Topics on this page Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary » More articles by Gary Leff »