Travel scams are getting harder to spot. Here's how to stay safe

Travel scams are getting harder to detect as fraudsters use AI tools to create convincing fake websites and leverage stolen data, according to executives and cybersecurity experts quoted by the Associated Press. Florent Silve of Engine, a corporate travel management platform, said scams that once looked clearly fake now blend in with what consumers expect. A June Federal Trade Commission report found Americans lost $3.5 billion to scams last year involving impostors reaching out via text, email, phone, social media and search engines. Nearly 1 in 3 fraud reports were impostor scams, the most common category. Experts warn that scammers may target hotel reservations and flight disruption alerts. For reservation hijacking, they may use real reservation details and links; the advice is to avoid paying via the provided link and instead call the hotel number on the company’s official website.