Travel scams: giving advice and warnings

Travel scams β€” a B1 English lesson. Practise giving advice with modal verbs and expand vocabulary around online safety and booking holidays.

Travel scams: giving advice and warnings
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Summary

This ESL lesson for B1 English students explores Travel safety and scams. Using a real video as the basis for discussion, students develop reading and listening comprehension, vocabulary, and grammar skills across a 90-minute class.

The grammar focus is Imperatives and Modals for Advice (need to, make sure). Key vocabulary includes legitimate (adjective), copycat sites (noun phrase), infiltrate (verb) and more, all drawn directly from the source material. The practical English section gives students useful phrases for real-life situations: Your friend is about to do something you think is risky, like booking a holiday from a website you don't trust. You want to warn them politely..

Activities

00:00 Travel brands, booking flights, hotels and rental cars online is popular for travelers.
00:08 Among the legitimate websites, you need to watch out for copycat sites. These scam websites will either just steal your money or will infiltrate your system.
00:19 Yvonne Caron of Brand Shield, a digital risk protection company, shared with us these examples. He says his company detects suspicious travel websites. Take a look to appear to be major airlines. Another, a popular travel booking site. But Karen says they're fake and the scam often starts with a targeted ad on social media.
00:39 You're reaching a page that gives you some special offer and you want to take it. Take a minute. Be careful. Go to the main website of the company, see that you can really reach the same deal through the main website in 2024.
00:53 According to the FTC, consumers lost $274 million to travel scams with the average loss just under $1,000. Another way scammers target you when you search for travel.
01:06 In some cases, when you see ads on Google or other search engines, those ads sometimes come up as one 800 number or customer service number for a certain airline or a hotel. And that's especially when your flight is canceled or something like that. And these are many times scams. Be very careful and make sure that you're calling the right number. Double check it. Make sure that you reach the right website to protect your money.
01:34 When booking any kind of travel, don't pay until you read the fine print. If you're not booking directly with the airline or hotel, use extreme caution when booking through a third party travel website. Make sure you take a look at the cancellation policy to see whether the trip is refundable. And if the communication goes to private messaging on social media or text, that's often a big red flag. You are dealing with a scammer. And remember, paying with a credit card always gives you the best protection.

Vocabulary focus

The vocabulary section introduces B1-level words and phrases related to Travel safety and scams. Key terms include legitimate (adjective), copycat sites (noun phrase), infiltrate (verb), suspicious (adjective), targeted ad (noun phrase). Students practise using these terms in context through exercises drawn from the source material.

Grammar focus

This lesson focuses on Imperatives and Modals for Advice (need to, make sure). When we give advice or warnings, we often use the imperative form (the base verb, e. g.

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