Travel scams appear in consumer complaints, police reports, airline-payment measurements, and insurance investigations. Recent figures show substantial reported losses in both the UK and United States, while industry estimates describe fraud risks affecting airlines and loyalty programs. These numbers measure reports, estimates, or specific investigations—not the share of all travelers who experience fraud.
Contents
- UK holiday-fraud reports and losses
- U.S. vacation-and-travel reports
- Losses reported by older U.S. adults
- Airline payments and ticket fraud
- Booking exposure and payment behavior
- Specialty travel fraud cases
UK holiday-fraud reports and losses
Action Fraud received 6,066 holiday-fraud reports in the UK during 2024. Victims reported combined losses of £11,183,957, and the average reported loss was £1,844 per victim. The figures come from the Action Fraud holiday-fraud warning published by ABTA. They describe reported cases, so they do not measure every incident or every traveler exposed to a scam.
The corresponding 2023 figures were higher in case volume and total reported losses: 6,640 reports and £12.3 million in combined losses. The average reported loss was £1,851. In other words, the reported annual totals were large in both years, even though the average loss per reported victim was close to £1,800.
| UK holiday-fraud measure | 2023 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Reported cases | 6,640 | 6,066 |
| Combined reported losses | £12.3 million | £11,183,957 |
| Average reported loss | £1,851 | £1,844 |
Reported cases also clustered around summer travel in the available monthly figures. Action Fraud recorded 647 holiday-fraud reports in July 2024, the highest monthly count reported for that year. In 2023, the service recorded 804 reports in July and 781 in August. Monthly counts should be read as reported case totals for those months, not as a measure of the probability that a particular holiday will be affected.
The same UK source reported £150,000 in combined losses from Hajj-related fraud during 2024, based on Action Fraud data. This is a specific pilgrimage-related subset of reported fraud, rather than a measure of all travel scams involving religious travel.
U.S. vacation-and-travel reports
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission recorded 47,184 Vacation & Travel reports in 2024. That category represented 0.73% of all Consumer Sentinel reports that year. The FTC Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book 2024 recorded 47,021 Vacation & Travel reports in 2023, or 0.85% of all Sentinel reports, and 55,719 reports in 2022, or 1.05%.
| FTC category | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vacation & Travel reports | 55,719 | 47,021 | 47,184 |
| Share of all Sentinel reports | 1.05% | 0.85% | 0.73% |
These are unverified reports recorded by the FTC, not a consumer survey. A person may report more than one category or subcategory, and the figures do not establish how many unique travelers were affected. The category totals nevertheless show that reported U.S. vacation-and-travel complaints remained above 47,000 in both 2023 and 2024 after a higher 2022 count.
Timeshare-related categories are tracked separately in the same data book. Timeshare Resales accounted for 10,944 reports in 2022, 8,265 in 2023, and 9,741 in 2024. Their shares of all Sentinel reports were 0.21%, 0.15%, and 0.15%, respectively. Timeshare Sales accounted for 2,660 reports in 2022, 1,872 in 2023, and 1,525 in 2024; the corresponding shares were 0.05%, 0.03%, and 0.02%.
Losses reported by older U.S. adults
For U.S. adults aged 60 and over, the FTC reported $35 million lost to Vacation & Travel fraud in 2024. Older adults filed 2,461 loss reports about this fraud type during that year. The FTC report Protecting Older Consumers 2024–2025 states that the reported $35 million was 62% higher in 2024 than in 2023.
The comparable 2023 reported loss was $22 million. Vacation & Travel was among the ten fraud types with the largest total reported dollar losses for U.S. adults aged 60 and over in that year. These figures concern reported losses by this age group; they do not estimate all losses, including incidents that were never reported.
The scale of the reported change is clearer when the two annual totals are kept with their measurement years: $22 million in 2023 and $35 million in 2024. The FTC’s stated 62% increase is the published comparison. It should not be interpreted as a change in the number of all older travelers who experienced a scam, because the data are report-based.
Airline payments and ticket fraud
The International Air Transport Association estimates that payment fraud costs the air-transport industry US$858 million annually. IATA estimates that airlines bear approximately US$639 million of that annual cost. These are industry estimates published on IATA’s Fake Travel Sites page, not a count of police complaints or a survey of passengers.
IATA also states that approximately 90% of emails sent worldwide are spam, spoof, or phishing attempts. The page does not present this as a travel-specific prevalence rate. It is broader context for why messages that imitate airlines, agencies, or booking services can be part of the fraud environment.
The cited Forter Fraud Report measure found that fraud attacks on the airline sector increased 61% from 2018 to 2019. In that measure, the average legitimate air-ticket purchase was US$606, while the average fraudulent air-ticket purchase was US$1,930. These figures come from IATA’s Fraud is widespread, increasing and far-reaching, which retains the cited study periods.
An RSA merchant comparison cited in the same IATA white paper attributed 46% of fraudulent transactions to airlines. Computer and electronics merchants accounted for 22%, money-transfer merchants for 16%, clothing merchants for 5%, and other services for 11%. This is a distribution within the cited comparison, not a percentage of all travel transactions.
Loyalty-program fraud in the cited 2018 global airline online-fraud benchmark had several recorded forms. Sixty percent involved points or miles purchased with fraudulent or stolen credit cards, and 52% involved loyalty-account theft or takeover. Travel agents buying tickets with agency miles and charging customers represented 33%. Double-dipping across programs for one flight represented 15%, while airline-staff account misuse represented 10%. These categories describe the benchmark’s reported forms of loyalty-program fraud and are not a current estimate for every airline program.
Booking exposure and payment behavior
Historical UK measurements provide dated context for booking scams. Nearly 1,000 holiday-fraud cases were reported to the UK National Fraud Intelligence Bureau in 2012, and UK consumers reported approximately £1.5 million in holiday-fraud losses that year. The figures were reported by ABTA, Get Safe Online and Action Fraud.
In the same 2012 ABTA YouGov poll, 33% of adults with three or more children said they had paid directly for private accommodation into the owner’s bank account. Twenty-seven percent of holidaymakers said they were prepared to pay £200 or more upfront as a holiday-booking deposit, while 7% were prepared to pay £500 or more upfront. These are poll responses from 2012, not current payment behavior or a measure of fraud prevalence.
The UK National Fraud Intelligence Bureau recorded 5,826 holiday-fraud cases in 2016, and holidaymakers and other travelers reported £7.2 million stolen in holiday fraud that year. The ABTA report on the 2016 figures also described reported cases rising almost 20% year on year, from 4,910 to 5,826. The comparison is historical and applies to the cited 2015–2016 period.
Taken together, the older poll and police figures show why payment method and booking verification matter as risk factors to examine. They do not show that every bank transfer, deposit, or private accommodation booking is fraudulent, and they should not be used as current estimates without newer measurement.
Specialty travel fraud cases
Travel fraud also appears in focused investigations rather than broad complaint totals. City of London Police reported that, over five years, its Insurance Fraud Enforcement Department received 102 referrals for travel-insurance fraud. The insurer-estimated value of those referrals was £4,404,334.42, with an insurer-estimated average value of £44,942.19 per referral. The period is described by City of London Police as five years ending with the 2026 publication; these are referrals and insurer estimates, not adjudicated losses in every case.
A nationwide travel-insurance-fraud operation in 2026 resulted in three arrests, four voluntary interviews, and two cease-and-desist notices. Three travel-insurance claims settled during that operation totaled £22,000. Police also alleged that one suspect had submitted 37 fraudulent missed-or-delayed-transport claims. The allegations and operational outcomes should be kept distinct from proven convictions or total industry prevalence.
Another City of London Police case involved a UK man who received £61,380 from 25 bogus travel and home-insurance claims over 18 months, including claims tied to cancelled holidays. The details appear in the police report Man sentenced for £60,000 worth of bogus travel insurance claims. This is an individual enforcement case, so it illustrates one investigated pattern rather than the frequency of fraudulent insurance claims across travelers.
For travelers, the central limitation across these statistics is consistent: reported or estimated amounts are not prevalence estimates for everyone who books a flight, accommodation, tour, pilgrimage, or insurance policy. Measurement year, geography, category definitions, and reporting behavior all shape the totals, so each figure is most useful when read with its source, scope, and period intact.