Watchlist Internet: network of fake flight-booking portals such as condortrips.com advertised on Facebook and Instagram
Watchlist Internet found a network of fake flight-booking portals, such as condortrips.com, advertised on Facebook and Instagram that take advance bank transfers and book no flights.
- First reported
- Reports
- 1
Source: watchlist-internet.at · published
What happened
Austrian consumer-protection site Watchlist Internet warned on 29 October 2026 about a large network of fake flight-booking portals advertised on Facebook and Instagram. Their names imitate airlines and travel brands (for example Condor, Jet2, Opodo, Wizz Air and Transavia), none of which is involved. Domains named include condortrips.com, cheap-trips.com, gowaytrips.com, wizflights.com, levitours.com and transaviatrips.com, plus jet2trips.com, eskytrips.com and opotrips.com, which Watchlist says are offline.
How the scam works
Watchlist Internet checked the Meta ad library on 28 October and found several ads. A click leads to a portal built like a real comparison site, with a search form at the top and picture offers below, and prices far below the market average. Payment is possible only by advance bank transfer, in known cases to an account in Spain or Italy. After the "booking", the victim is given the domain bookingstatuscheck.com, which claims to confirm that a booking is genuine and made through an official travel agency. It asks only for a name and booking number and, unsurprisingly, says everything is fine. Watchlist says all the portals are fakes: no flights are booked and the money is gone. An older fake escrow site, onwardtrust.com, is now offline.
The portals add credibility in several ways. The legal notices quote ABTA and ATOL licence numbers that belong to real, unrelated travel companies. Links to genuine competitor sites work, and each portal has a matching social-media profile, though with hardly any followers or activity. Several domains were registered in summer or autumn 2026, and some older domains were apparently taken over from insolvent firms.
Source
Watchlist Internet, "Aufgedeckt: Großes Netzwerk an Fake-Portalen für Flugbuchungen", 29 October 2026.
Red flags
- Flight prices far below those on well-known comparison sites.
- Payment only by advance bank transfer, to an account in Spain or Italy.
- A portal name that is a small variation on an airline or travel brand (for example condortrips.com or wizflights.com).
- A "booking status check" on a separate domain (bookingstatuscheck.com) that confirms your booking is genuine.
- Licence numbers (ABTA, ATOL) in the legal notice that belong to unrelated companies, and social profiles with almost no followers.
If you were targeted
- 1Do not pay by direct bank transfer to a site you found through a social-media ad; use a card or a method with buyer protection.
- 2Check the operator: company registry, licence numbers on the regulator's own site, and the domain's registration date.
- 3Book directly with the airline or an established agency.
- 4If you paid, contact your bank immediately to try to stop or recall the transfer, and report to the police.
- 5Report the ad to Facebook or Instagram and to Watchlist Internet or your national consumer-protection body.