On Nov. 1, Sabrina James was scrolling through her phone before bed when she got a strange email from Alaska Airlines.

A flight from Milan to Madrid had been booked using her miles. But the name on the ticket wasn’t her own. Besides, James had no plans to go to Madrid and she certainly wasn’t in Milan; she was at home on the other side of the world in Clovis, Calif., where it just dawned upon her that her miles had likely been stolen.

My heart jumped,” she said in an interview on Monday.

James tried to log into her Alaska Airlines loyalty account, but her email and password didn’t work. After over an hour on hold with customer service, she learned that someone had entered her account, changed the email associated with it and used 7,500 miles to buy the Madrid flight.

James was a victim

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