Recently, MGA Travel has become aware of attempts by individuals to impersonate travel advisors when contacting clients. In at least some cases, even our actual office telephone number has been spoofed, meaning the number shown on a caller ID appeared to be MGA Travel even though the call did not originate from our office.
This is not unique to MGA Travel. In August 2026, the American Society of Travel Advisors warned travel agencies about the increasing scale and sophistication of fraud affecting the travel industry. Reported tactics include impersonating clients and travel professionals, phishing, credential theft, fraudulent payment requests, and the growing use of artificial intelligence to make scams more convincing.
The technology may be changing, but there are some simple steps travelers can take to protect themselves.
Most of us have learned to be suspicious of calls from unfamiliar numbers. Unfortunately, criminals can now “spoof” a telephone number so that a call appears to come from a legitimate business.
That means seeing MGA Travel or our correct telephone number on your caller ID does not necessarily prove that the caller is actually speaking from our office.
If something about a call feels unusual, hang up and call us yourself using a telephone number you already have for MGA Travel or the number published on our website.
Our advisors may contact you regarding payments that are due on an upcoming trip, but we will not call you and ask you to read your complete credit card information over the telephone.
When MGA Travel needs sensitive information such as:
we will direct you to one of our secure forms.
Likewise, please do not send complete credit card numbers, banking information, passport images, or similar sensitive information in an ordinary email.
One of the most common tools used by scammers is urgency.
Be suspicious of a caller or message claiming that:
If a payment request is unexpected, verify it independently before doing anything.
And if you do not currently have travel booked through MGA Travel, there would normally be no reason for anyone from our office to request new credit card or banking information from you.
This is becoming increasingly important.
A criminal may know the name of your travel advisor. They may know that you have traveled with MGA Travel. They may even know details about a destination you have visited or a group with which you have traveled.
Some of that information may be available through websites, social media, reviews, or other public sources.
Artificial intelligence makes it increasingly easy to gather and combine publicly available information and use it to create a convincing message or conversation.
Therefore, familiarity alone should never replace verification.
At this time, MGA Travel is not aware of our company email addresses being spoofed as part of the recent incidents. Nevertheless, email and text impersonation are common fraud techniques.
Be cautious if a message:
If you have any doubt, do not reply to the message or use the telephone number or link contained within it.
Instead, contact MGA Travel independently.
This is the most important advice we can give you:
If you are ever uncertain whether a communication really came from MGA Travel, stop and call us directly.
Use a telephone number you already have for MGA Travel or obtain our number independently from mgatravel.com.
We would much rather spend a few minutes confirming that a legitimate communication really came from us than have one of our travelers become the victim of someone pretending to be us.
Technology will continue to change, and unfortunately scams will continue to evolve along with it. Our responsibility is to stay alert, maintain secure procedures, and help our travelers do the same.
At MGA Travel, we have always believed that travel is an investment. Protecting that investment is part of taking care of our travelers before, during, and after every journey.
