UKC

I've been arranging a walking holiday in the Canaries in the New Year.

Found a company offering self guided walking from hotel to hotel, but you have arrange your own flights. Looked on line and found a good deal for return flights but couldn't book until the accommodation was confirmed. Got an email this morning confirming the accommodation so went straight back onto the airline site, only to find that since my search yesterday afternoon the flights had gone up by £40 each!

I've now booked them, but have a suspicion that they monitor enquiries and increase the price if you've recently made a search for the same flights. Or am I being a cynic and this is just pure co-incidence?

In reply to Trangia:

If you return and have a cookie from their site, they often put up the price !!

Delete cookies between searches.

In reply to Trangia: There's no evidence to conclusively prove this, but there's plenty of anecdotal evidence - which is not the same as proof.

If you're concerned, try clearing all your cookies and so on and then browsing again, or use a proxy server to anonymise yourself. Be interesting to see what result you get for this now, having booked but having cleared your cookies etc. Perhaps have an actual cookie while you're doing it and then you can spray it all over the screen when you get a cheaper price.

In reply to Frank the Husky:


I call bullshit. Mostly because it would break scraping websites such as Skyscanner or Google Flights, which mine information from websites without downloading cookies. If you're adept you can do this yourself using Curl or something similar.

In reply to planetmarshall: Are you calling bullshit on me saying there's no evidence, or me saying that anecdotes are not the same as evidence?

In reply to Frank the Husky:


On the original premise - that airlines change their prices based on individual browser traffic.

In reply to planetmarshall: Fair enough. Perhaps at best we can say "not proven" one way or the other.

In reply to Trangia:

"I see you are looking for a flight, but haven't booked straight away. That suggests you are undecided whether to go, or which airline to choose. In order to make it more likely that you will choose this flight with us, we will put the price up".

Doesn't sound very likely to me.

In reply to Trangia:

One thing I've seen is that for large groups, they will price all tickets to the higher price. So, if 8 adults are going, you will be priced 8 tickets for £150, but you may be able to get 4 for £100 and 4 for £150

In reply to IPPurewater:


Or use porn, sorry, incognito mode.

In reply to ianstevens:


Or use a different browser, or a different device.

I have carried out ad hoc testing from time to time when booking flights and I have never uncovered any evidence that price rises are cookie related. To the contrary, on the odd occasion when the price has risen between sessions browsing the same airline's web site, clearing cookies, switching browsers or using a different device has never got the price back down.

I call urban myth.

In reply to planetmarshall:

You may call BS but it certainly seems to play this way. I booked some Ryan air flights recently: take 1=£58
Take 2 (20 mins later after checking the flight times with friend) =£76
Open private browser window
Take 3= £58 once again

Exactly the same happened when booking national express tickets to the airport.

In reply to planetmarshall:

Nope not bullshit, my Mrs checked our flights for Christmas the other morning and texted me the prices and times, i got home so we jumped on to book them, they were showing more than earlier, cleared cookies, now back to where they were, thats Easyjet by the way. Try it for yourself and see....

Alos it wouldn't break Skyscanner etc. as they are probably using an API or other means of getting the data, Easyjet could also know which website is querying the prices so would then change the cookie behaviour to suit

In reply to Dark-Cloud:


How do you know that the difference was caused by cookies or IP tracking? Rather than the fact that ticket prices change all the time anyway (dynamic pricing)?

In reply to Martin W:




I've had it both ways - sometimes you are just unlucky and prices go up, sometimes clearing cookies brings them back down again.

In reply to Trangia:

This is not just the case for airline tickets, just about anything you buy on line is going to have a price set for maximum gouge based upon everything they know about you. Why do you think they go to all the trouble?

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.forbes.com/sites/adamtanner/2014/03/26/dif...

From the article:
Their study of 200 stores found Amazon, Staples and videogame store Steam among those varying price by geographic location by as much as 166%. Such practices are legal, but companies are reluctant to talk about them. “We do not discuss details of our e-commerce practices,” said Staples spokesman Mark Cautela. Amazon did not respond to requests for comment.

In reply to Jimbocz:

Yes, that's part of dynamic pricing, and is fairly standard practice. What isn't standard practice (at least I've found nothing other than anecdotal evidence for it) is putting up prices based on previous searches.

In reply to Trangia:

Take off your tinfoil hats guys!

Airlines sell a set number of seats per price bracket with the ones sold first going cheaper. So all that's happened is by time you've gone on the second time they've sold a few more and the price has gone up to the next bracket.

ps. they're not using their planes to disperse mind control drugs in to the atmosphere either.


(there are some additional complications around season, some offers being introduced on specific date, some fares having advance purchase rules - eg. must be booked 5 days in advance of flight to be valid - and may reintroduce availability as flights that are 'on hold' are released, and then there's regional markets so someone booking from within India might get a cheaper fare than you would booking from this country for the same flight.....but from the examples given you're just looking at the main 'sell the first lot cheap then progressively more expensive' reason)

In reply to Dark-Cloud:



skyscanner uses cached info and is effectively just a rerouting engine.

clearing your cookies did nothing, but potentially someone was during the booking process and stopped - just like if you go on ticketmaster you ahve several minutes to complete your booking before the tickets are released back in to availability.

In reply to Trangia:

It is more likely that other passengers have booked so there are less seats available and the price has gone up. .

It's always a risk you take.

I have seen prices reduce, stay the same and increase. All depends on the popularity of the flight.

In reply to Scarab9:



So how does this explain prices dropping again once you clear your browser history/use a private browser window?

In reply to gethin_allen:

Either coincidence as mentioned above, or its possible if you're checking multiple times and beginning the booking stage that you have the seats 'held' briefly so when you check again seconds later there's currently hoe ever many you had held less. These then return very soon after.

In reply to Trangia:
My nomadic mate told me the following a couple of weeks ago:-
Don't try to book BA around midnight, they change their prices then and the price will change before your eyes (if your booking process holds up, most of the time it crashes.
With some operators the cost of the return leg depends on the outgoing leg ie. fly out on Friday night with an outgoing leg costing £100 and the return leg will be £100. Fly out on the Thursday night for £50 and the same return leg will be £50.

I've also heard that flights are more expensive to buy during the day when it's mostly businesses booking them.