Planning a trip is one of the best parts of travel. As you browse around travel websites and book your plans, a sense of excitement and anticipation grows. You have something you can look forward to. Or do you? Welcome to the unfortunate world of travel scams, where travelers get tripped up by phony booking sites, fake rental listings, and excursions that weren’t at all like they were advertised. Scammers walk away richer for them — leaving many travelers out of places to stay, things to do, and ultimately their money. So just how bad is it out there? Our own research in 2024 found that 28% of the people we surveyed said they’d fallen for a travel scam when booking travel. The top three booking scams looked like this:

  • Providing their credit or bank card details on a fake site, which a scammer then used to make fraudulent payments (15%)
  • Clicking on a link from an unknown source that was a scam or malicious (10%)
  • Encountering manipulated photos of their holiday destination (8%)

Yet another 28% said they’d fallen prey to a scam while traveling. The top three scams for those Americans included:

  • Paying a deposit on places to stay that turned out not to exist or which had no record of their registration (13%)
  • Paying for an event or excursion where the provider never showed up (10%)
  • Putting money down on an excursion, which turned out completely unlike what was advertised (9%)

The cost of travel scams

What kind of money did people lose? In all, we found that 32% of victims said they lost between $501 to $1,000 in a single scam. Another 24% of victims said they lost more than $1,000. Only a relatively small percentage of people said they lost nothing — just 15%, a figure that shows just how successful travel scams can be. This falls right in line with reports from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). As published in their 2023 Data Book, more than 55,000 Americans reported a travel scam. The median loss — nearly $1,200 per case. As always with FTC statistics, they only document reported cases of fraud. The number of actual scams more than likely climbs higher than that.

How to avoid falling for travel scams

Planning a trip should be exciting.  Unfortunately, scammers often target travelers with fake vacation deals, rental listings, and bogus booking websites. By knowing what to look out for and taking a few smart precautions, you can protect yourself and enjoy your travels with peace of mind.

Use a trusted platform

That’s your best place to start. Book your vacation rental through a reputable outlet. Travel platforms like Expedia, Priceline, Orbitz, and others have anti-fraud protections in place. For vacation rentals, platforms like Airbnb and VRBO have policies and processes in place that protect renters from scammers as well.

Look for common signs of vacation rental scams

Do a reverse image search on the photos used in the property’s listing and see what comes up. It might be a piece of stock photography designed to trick you into thinking it was taken at an actual property for rent. Scammers sometimes highjack photos of actual properties that aren’t for rent. Some now use AI-generated images as well. Also read the reviews for the property. Listings with no reviews are a red flag.

Only communicate and pay on the platform

Also with vacation rentals, if a host asks to communicate outside of the platform, that’s another red flag. Scammers will try to lure you off the platform where they can request payment in forms that are difficult to recover or trace after you realize you’ve been scammed. Moreover, paying for your rental outside the platform might also go against the terms of service, as in the case of Airbnb. Or, as with VRBO, paying outside the platform voids their “Book with Confidence Guarantee,” which offers you certain protections. Use the platform to pay and use a credit card when you do. In the U.S., the Fair Credit Billing Act allows you to dispute charges. Additionally, some credit cards offer their own anti-fraud protections that can help you dispute a billing.

Never pay with cryptocurrency, wire transfers, or gift cards

If someone asks you to pay for your trip one of these ways, it’s a scam. Travel scammers prefer these payment methods because they’re exceptionally tough to track. Once that money gets sent, it’s likewise exceptionally tough to get back.

Keep an eye out for phishing attacks

Scammers use phishing emails and messages to trick travelers into revealing sensitive info or downloading malware onto their devices. As you book, look for unsolicited messages claiming to be from airlines, hotels, or financial institutions, particularly if they ask for personal info or prompt you to click on suspicious links. When in question, contact the sender directly using official contact info from their official website. Also, look into our Web Protection and Scam Detector. Both will alert you if a link might take you to a sketchy site. It’ll also block those sites if you accidentally tap or click on a bad link.

Have an easy way to keep tabs on your accounts and credit

Fraud can happen any time, even when you’re out of town. A couple of things can help you nip it quickly before it takes a big bite out of your credit card or bank accounts. Transaction monitoring notifies you of any questionable activity in your credit cards or bank accounts. It can further alert you to any other questionable activity in your 401(k) plans, investments, and loans. Say that your debit card info got skimmed in a sketchy ATM or point-of-sale machine — you’ll get an alert if thieves try to make a purchase with it. From there, you can contact your bank and take the extra step of putting a security freeze in place to prevent further fraud. You can activate the security freeze and transaction monitoring features in our McAfee+ plans as well.

Protect your identity

Before you hop on the plane, train, or automobile, consider investing in identity protection. This way, you can head off any issues that might crop up when you should be enjoying yourself. For example, imagine losing your wallet. Immediately, a dark cloud of “what ifs” rolls in. What if someone’s running up charges on your cards? What if someone used your ID or insurance cards to impersonate you online? Not a great feeling any time, especially on vacation. With identity theft coverage and restoration in place, you can recoup your losses and restore your identity if a thief damaged it in any way. Ours provides up to $2 million in coverage, along with lost wallet protection that cancels and replaces lost cards with little effort from you.