SALT LAKE CITY — A Saratoga Springs man was charged Tuesday with hacking into the United Airlines website, stealing airline vouchers and selling them to other people.
Ammon Cunningham, 28, was charged in 3rd District Court with computer crimes, theft, communications fraud and engaging in a pattern of unlawful activity, all second-degree felonies.
From about July 2012 to September 2012, Cunningham "unlawfully accessed (hacked) the United Airlines website and obtained Personal Identification Numbers (PIN) codes for Electronic Travel Certificates that had been assigned to United customers but had not yet been redeemed by those customers," according to charging documents.
After obtaining the travel vouchers, Cunningham would either use them for himself or sell them on Craigslist and KSL.com, the charges state.
Cunningham used 13 certificates valued at more than $7,800 for personal travel and sold about 120 vouchers valued at more than $58,000 to others, according to charging documents.
Many of those certificates were sold at heavily discounted prices. One couple purchased two vouchers with a total value of about $2,400 or less than $2,000, the charges state, and booked a round-trip vacation from New Jersey to Munich.
In September 2012, Cunningham sent an email to United Airlines using an alias, claiming that he had "found a massive hole in the United.com website" which he was willing to share with them for $10,000 and first-class airline tickets to any destination in the world, the charges state.