Fixes are easy - and cheap. Well, to get the 'low hanging fruit' anyway.
Either or better, both:
- block redemptions within the next say 2-3 days, or at a minimum on Qatar in that time and that looks to take away most of the viability. A more friendly way would be to permit these bookings only through the customer service centre, with verification. A bit more expensive, but I doubt there's a massive legitimate volume of bookings for those conditions that CS cost would be great.
- prevent changes to email address online. Require contact through CS, with verification provided. Again, cheap and easy to do, with little CS cost.
Slightly more expensive, but standard nowadays and not excessively costly is IP/session verification as is done with financial payments, which this is equivalent to in the case of redemptions. i.e. if a redemption is made, is the session trusted, or is it a new IP? Permit the first, reject the latter - again, require them to go through CS or add verification to the session.
Of course that won't eradicate it BUT with the extra lead time and extra visibility it will mean that most of the current dodginess can be picked up and cancelled in that time, making the honey pot less attractive. There are also things that do cost more and do a greater job of blocking, but it's just way too easy as it stands, so the aim is to make it harder, and then focus on the next best value things to improve.
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