A former Qantas employee has pleaded guilty to 24 of 28 charges of obtaining benefit by deception in a Frequent Flyer points scam.

Ferri Sutan Malik, 31, faces up to five years in prison for using the airline’s database to steal nearly 11 million points, which he redeemed for $450,000 worth of air travel.

Malik allegedly searched through the company’s booking system to identify ticketed passengers without a Frequent Flyer account. He would then call Qantas pretending to be the passenger, and have the points earned for the flight credited to a fictitious account.

In a three-year period ending in 2001, Malik allegedly redeemed 230 award flights, some of which were sold.