Experts are warning travelers to guard their boarding passes, which could be targets for identity thieves to steal your frequent flyer miles or even your return flight.
After you take a trip, your boarding pass is probably the last thing you think about. Toss it, leave it in the seat pocket, who cares, right? But you should. It turns out there can a lot of info on that boarding pass.
Joshua Valentine works at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and he also recently returned from a trip.
"I don't think nothing of it just, toss it in the trash can," Valentine said about his boarding pass.
Valentine said right before being interviewed, he and a coworker found another boarding pass discarded on the floor.
Catherine Banks with Legacy Travel said that's a bad idea.
"Your boarding pass actually has some information on it," Banks said.
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It could include your name, trip locator and even your frequent flyer number.
"So if somebody has your record locator and your name," said Banks, "they can go to the airline's website and pull up your entire trip itinerary, find exactly where you're going, when you're coming back, even mess with your reservation."
With a name and a city, it's not hard to find out an address if someone wanted to case your house.
Even boarding passes without that information printed on them still have a barcode that could contain it.
"There's a barcode reader, tons of them that you can get on your phone, and there's a barcode on your boarding pass," Banks said.
Aim your camera at the barcode and you get it a bunch of information from the boarding pass.
That information was enough to convince Valentine what to do on his next trip.
"I'm going to keep it with me. I'm going to shred it. I'm gonna destroy it. I'm just going to get rid of it," Valentine said.
Banks suggests trying to use your airline's mobile app to board instead of printing a paper boarding pass. If you do print one, Banks suggests shredding it once your trip is over.
