Hacker steals 288,000 frequent flyer points for Bali holiday

A Brisbane dad is warning others what to look out for after a cyber criminal stole 288,000 of his hard-earned frequent flyer points, tried to go on a holiday in his name – and then took a further $13,500 from his bank account.

Daniel Tsui, 47, thought something was strange in March when he checked his Virgin Australia account and saw just 10,000 frequent flyer points left on his profile.

Tsui accrued more travel points than most Australians during the pandemic because he must fly between Brisbane and Cairns every week for work.

Puzzled, he looked into his Virgin account more closely and realised that 288,000 of his points had been redeemed and spent on a hotel stay in Bali.

The problem was, he had no plans to travel to the popular tourist destination and certainly hadn’t made the booking.

Tsui told news.com.au it was lucky that he is “constantly booking flights” otherwise he might not have noticed he had been hacked until it was too late.

But in the months since then, he’s been plagued by other security breaches, including from his bank, PayPal and even a defunct Netflix account.

Now he’s worried the hackers will launch a “fresh attack” that will see his finances compromised even further.

Tsui believes the fraudsters broke into his various accounts after obtaining his data illegally.

“I think somehow my passwords got compromised,…