Enough Hilton Hhonors points to cover $1200 worth of stays can be bought for $12, and the crooks who're inside your account can use your associated credit-card to buy more points and more hotel rooms for themselves.
In a post on October 30, LoyaltyLobby's John Ollila wrote about a hacker selling Hilton Honors accounts for a tiny fraction of the real world value of points in those accounts. For example, the points stolen from Brothers would have fetched around USD $12 — even though the thieves in his case managed to redeem the stolen miles for approximately USD $1,200 worth of hotel reservations.
I did a bit of sleuthing on my own and was able to find plenty of sellers on shady forums offering them for about three to five percent of their actual value. As this ad from the online black market/drug bazaar known as Evolution Market indicates, the points can be redeemed for gift cards (as good as cash) at points.com and other locations that convert points to currency. The points also can be used to buy items from the Hilton shopping mall, including golf clubs, watches, Apple products and other electronics.
Thieves Cash Out Rewards, Points Accounts [Brian Krebs]
