A worker at a Trump branded hotel was a little too excited to earn credit card rewards, and it ultimately caused him to be arrested (thanks to View from the Wing for flagging this).
Hotel worker pocketed cash, put purchases on his credit card
A 23-year-old former front desk agent at the Trump International Beach Resort in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, has been arrested on charges of grand theft, organized scheme to defraud, offenses against computer users, and unlawful use of a communication device, per Miami-Dade records.
So, what happened, exactly? Around June 10, 2026, hotel management launched an investigation, after finding irregularities involving guest payment transactions.
The investigation determined that guests paid for their rooms and other services in cash, and then the front desk agent would void or modify those transactions, and then instead process the payment with his own credit card. He conducted this scheme on multiple occasions, and the hotel incurred total losses of just over $3,100 as a result of this.
Apparently this is only the start of the investigation, and the belief is that the amounts could be much larger, and that more people could be involved.
According to the prosecutor, “I guess he worked at a hotel and he was taking the cash and voiding the transactions, and then he had an application where he was using these transactions I think to accumulate credit card points.”
If this hadn’t been at his job, I’d say it’s a smart scheme!
As someone who is obsessed with credit card rewards and miles & points, I’ve certainly convinced others who were going to make a large purchase with cash to instead let me use my credit card. After all, when you’re paying with cash, you’re leaving rewards on the table.
If you do that with a friend, there’s absolutely nothing wrong or illegal about it. It goes without saying that the issue here is that he was doing this while on the job, and it was his employer paying those credit card transaction fees, which is why this is such an issue.
The claim is that the hotel lost around $3,100 in this scheme, so based on swipe fees, that would probably translate to somewhere between $100,000 and $150,000 in credit card payments, give or take. Some people may be surprised to see so many people paying in cash in the first place, since many hotels nowadays are even cashless.
Here’s my best guess, and I’m leaving Trump out of the equation here. Sunny Isles is very popular with Russians, so I suspect that a lot of the cash payments may have been from those guests, given their banking restrictions due to sanctions. I’ve certainly been at ski destinations in Europe in recent years where I’ve seen Russians pull out massive stacks of 100 euro notes to pay for things.
Anyway, I’m curious what credit card this guy was using. Was he using a 2% cash back card, was he trying to spend his way to airline or hotel elite status, or what?
Bottom line
A former front desk agent at the Trump International Beach Resort in Sunny Isles Beach has been arrested over a scheme to generate credit card points. When he processed a guest payment in cash, he’d cancel out the transaction, pocket the cash, and then instead charge it on his own credit card.
To be clear, he wasn’t “stealing” the money. Instead, he just wanted the credit card rewards, and the theft here involves the extra swipe fees the hotel incurred as a result of this scheme.
What do you make of this front desk agent at the Trump Resort being arrested?