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British Airways suspending Executive Club accounts after suspected hacking attack

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I had a tweet on Friday from a HfP reader who suddenly found himself locked out of his British Airways Executive Club account.  The call centre were not willing to enlighten him further.

Over the weekend, more details have trickled out.

This email from British Airways was posted by a user at Flyertalk:

Dear Customer

British Airways has become aware of some unauthorised activity in relation to your Executive Club account.

This appears to have been the result of a third party using information obtained elsewhere on the internet, via an automated process, to try to gain access to your Executive Club account.

We understand this was login information relating to a different online service which you may have also used to access your Executive Club account.

We would like to reassure you that, although it does appear that the login attempt was successful, at this stage we are not aware of any access to any subsequent information pages within your account, including your flight history or payment card details.

We have now locked down your online account to protect it from further access. As part of the lock-down process we have also changed your password and you will need to reset it before you are able to use your account.

If you use the same login details for your Executive Club account as you do for your online accounts with any other organisations, we would also recommend that you change the passwords for these accounts, as well as exercising vigilance regarding any unusual or suspicious use of your personal data.

For a short period of time, as a precaution, we have also suspended the use of Avios on your account. We will let you know when this suspension period is over.

In the meantime, however, if you wish to spend your Avios please contact us via your local Executive Club service centre. We will be able to reactivate your account by asking you some additional security questions.

We are sorry for the concern and inconvenience this matter may have caused you and would like to reassure you that we are taking this incident seriously.

British Airways Executive Club team

It is not clear what the ‘online service’ is that he is meant to have used which has led to his account being compromised.  It seems that it is NOT AwardWallet which would be the obvious suspect because it is the biggest of the online account management apps.  None of the four people on Flyertalk who received this email report having shared their details with ANY third party apps.

It seems that fraudulent use of accounts is linked to both hotel bookings with Avios and flights.  Russia appears to be a common thread among the flight routes and hotel guest names.  This sort of behaviour is hugely risky of course since it relies on the account holder not noticing that his account balance has dropped.  (This is why it would be stupid to hack AwardWallet, since you would be alerted as soon as your balance moved!)

One Flyertalk poster even found that the name on his BA account had been changed – heaven knows how that was done.

The moral of this story is to keep an eye on your balances – ironically, this may involve giving your details to a service like AwardWallet – and treat account security in the same way you would treat bank account security (which, in some ways, it is).

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Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (69)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Capecam says:
    26 Mar26 March 15:52

    BA exec club seems to be experiencing another major meltdown today – My account has lost all my up and coming flights for the next 9 months, and shows I have no future bookings – a call to exec club said they were experiencing problems. Their systems as well as deleting info

    I suggest everybody writes down all their PNR’s as they may have to re enter them all manually if the probl;em that is affecting many members becomes even more widespread

  • geoff says:
    26 Mar26 March 21:47

    I have had a houseold account in BA Exec for a few months. I can see my balance and I can see the joint balance just below mine, but when I search for reward flights I can only see what is avaliable with my own balance.

    I am clicking here:
    My Household Account Avios: -> Manage my Household Account -> Explore and check reward flight availability.

    What am I doing wrong?

    When the other member of the household logs in they can see their balance and we are both at the same address.

    Thanks for your help
    Geoff

  • john says:
    27 Mar27 March 13:12

    My account was done over too – hotel plus car hire in Australia, and hotel in Manilla – both booked for the same day back in January!? Not sure why that didn’t raise a flag.

    Called up yesterday – BA have advised me to reset my password and they would reinstate the points. I am yet to see the points again but I guess it can take a while.

  • THOMAS says:
    27 Mar27 March 14:14

    Just tried to log in to my BA account.
    Was not able to and am now waiting for 25 minutes so far on the phone with Exec Club to sort out.
    All my points have been used as well as my 2 vouchers !!

    • Thomas says:
      27 Mar27 March 20:32

      So it seems like a lot of us are all suddenly in the same situation.
      The guy that I spoke to today was very good and confirmed my points and vouchers are all ok.
      But BA need to seriously up their game. Their website is full of faults.

  • Darren says:
    27 Mar27 March 14:30

    Looks like mine has got issues too. I only realised as I got a push notification from Award Wallet saying my account has been wiped clean and gone to 0 avios. Very alarming! I can’t log in, and it isn’t recognising my username and won’t let me reset the password.

    Exec Club just say it is being ‘auditied’, and they will be in touch ‘at some point’. Great!!

    • Gill Adderley says:
      27 Mar27 March 14:58

      Seems lots of accounts have zeroed, including the 3 in our household.
      Not a good time to happen. I want to use some points in the next few days for flights just after easter and have been searching for suitable reward flights for weeks.

      • Darren says:
        27 Mar27 March 15:06

        I did ask them if I could still book over the phone and they said yes, but not sure if my account is really zero or whether that’s just what it shows during the ‘auditing’.

  • JK says:
    27 Mar27 March 15:14

    Me too! My account and 3 linked household accounts for my wife and children. Password changed and all points removed with ‘Ex gratia’ as description on my statement.

    Called EC and got told same thing that BA are auditing some accounts. ‘If everything is fine, points will be reinstated.’ I asked when will that be? ‘Can’t say’. ‘What do you mean if everything is fine?’ ‘Can’t say.’ I asked some more questions, same answer.

    I suggested that I could check again in a few days, and she said yes I could do that.

    Really unhelpful and really out of order from BA. At the moment it looks like I have been robbed by the company who own the scheme!

    • JK says:
      27 Mar27 March 15:18

      Maybe it’s just an IT glitch? Some goon wiped the database and they’re all flapping round trying to roll back the dodgy script.

  • Pol says:
    27 Mar27 March 15:53

    Logged on with award wallet this morning and everything was fine. Tried to log on an hour ago to my BA account and won’t recognise my username or password, phoned but told wait times were over 30 minutes. This really is a poor show from BA, why not email and let you know what’s happening or put a notice up on the website. According to flyertalk today lots more people are having this problem.

    • Thomas says:
      27 Mar27 March 21:02

      Agree. Exactly the same thing I got but credit to the person I spoke with.
      Blame goes far higher and they really need to sort their site and IT out.

  • flyoff says:
    27 Mar27 March 16:16

    My BAEC account has been closed down sometime after 0700 this morning. I was advised when i phoned BA my account and all members of my household have had their Avios withdrawn for safe keeping. They also said all other BAEC accounts are closed. This does not seem to be true from what is being said on flyertalk but BA may be in the process of doing this. If this is true there must be a major breach in their security.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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