Japanese woman arrested for 3,250 hotel booking cancellations

Japanese police have arrested a tourist who, according to preliminary data, booked and then canceled rooms in more than 3200 hotels.

All reservations were made over the internet. The total amount for accommodation in hotels would be about 1 million US dollars for a failed tourist.

Police in the western district of Kyoto confirmed they had taken a 51-year-old woman into custody over her massive booking and cancellation of rooms at three hotels in late 2019. That is, the hotels were damaged in the amount of more than 95 thousand yen (about 864 US dollars).

It later emerged that these bookings were just the tip of the iceberg of crimes the pseudo-tourist had committed. During the year, she made and then canceled 3,000,250 bookings in Japan. The hotels estimated the damage at 115 million yen (approximately $1 million).

The woman booked hotels not for entertainment: according to Japanese media, the attacker collected points on the loyalty program of hotels that came to her card for each reservation. As a result, it “earned” 2.5 million yen. Police are continuing their investigation, believing the suspect was targeting hotels with high levels of consumer demand. We assume that there were many such hotels, the police spokesman said.

Source: tourprom