Traveling? This year AAA estimates “46.9 million Americans will journey 50 miles or more from home during the Thanksgiving holiday.” Just a few weeks ago I flew to Miami for my college reunion. And when I returned, I thought about shredding my boarding pass.

In the end, I think I just ripped it up and threw it away. But what’s really wrong with tossing your boarding pass anyway?

As you know Identity theft is a real problem in our country. In fact, according to the U.S. Department of Justice “an estimated 17.6 million persons, or 7% of all U.S. residents age 16 or older, were victims of one or more incidents of identity theft in 2014.”

Scammers are constantly looking for ways to get access to your private information. We see it in our email, hear it on the phone and if you’re not careful it could happen to you in person.

Last week on the news, the words “your boarding pass could be a goldmine for thieves” caught my attention. Watching this segment showed me, you’d better think twice about tossing your airline boarding pass and bag tags.

Take a look at the video below for a full report.

I participate in several airline frequent flyer programs and hearing this news makes it a definite ‘Yes’ for me to start shredding my boarding passes and bag tags.

Will this news change how you handle your boarding pass?

Safe travels to you! 🙂