airlines should be banned from increasing prices the more you search

[stolenview]

This pisses me off no end. The more you search for a particular flight the higher its cost goes. Even ba do this shady thing! Luckily I know that you just have to clear all your cookies and start again to get the original price. But they must trick millions out of people that don't know how to do it.

[TalkinPeace]

NotDAvidTennant
You must live in London to think that.
Welcome to the land of cross country tickets across several companies and several places to change trains to get to the same destination.

[Mehitabel6]

It isn't a myth. I have just booked train tickets- I found the price, wrote it all down and decided- went back to book and prices up. Cleared the cookies and it went back to the first price. You do need to split tickets- saved £25 on the journey by splitting- even though it is the same train. It does take hours to sort out and 'split the ticket' website only saved £3,so better to do it yourself.
Easyjet definitely goes up the second time you look and back down when you clear the cookies. Again I have had to do that to book. It isn't a myth.

[SeenSheen]

It is definitely a thing because if it were simply that all the seats in the lowest bracket had sold out and you were on to the next, it would be unlikely to go back down again the next day which happens frequently.

[bridgetsmummy]

I worked for airlines for years, prices go up and down all the time.
If the lowest fare bucket sells out, sales may slow down. Yield management can then release more seats into the lower fare bucket to generate more sales.
Fares go down as well as up and not because of cookies

[SmillasSenseOfSnow]

I think thetrainline did this to me the other week. I added the £39 tickets to my basket, went to the next stage and it needed me to log in, which took a minute. When I logged in, it cleared my basket and the same tickets were £47 instead. I just ordered £39 tickets which (thankfully) were still available for the next departure time, but now I'm thinking I should have removed my cookies.

[Shakey1500]

It most certainly IS true.

We frequently check flight dates/times/prices at home in the run up to booking annual Greek jaunt. When we settle on what we want I go five doors down to my sister, enter exactly the same details, and it's always cheaper.

But perhaps someone would be so kind as to tell me how to clear browser cookies to save me the arduous trek

[TheCatsMother99]

I just clear cookies or go incognito and it isn't an issue.... It definitely does affect the price if you don't do that though.

[bridgetsmummy]

No it doesn't!!

If you all want to believe this nonsense, fine, just ignore the person who has actually worked in the industry and understands how the pricing works.
Bottom line, book at a fare you're happy to pay then stop checking, cos you'll be really hacked off if the price drops again!

[Mehitabel6]

Ignore it if you want and pay extra- seems madness to me when you just have to clear the cookies!
At least try it- it most definitely works with National Rail travel and Easyjet.
You have nothing to lose by just clearing the cookies and starting again.
I did it only last week. A fare was £5.60- went back later that day and it was £8.40 so cleared the cookies and it was back to £5.60.
It is quite simple to do a test and find out for yourself who is right.
(Fares will of course go up nearer the time- that is a different issue and why I book early)

[DrankSangriaInThePark]

OK, so always willing to be proved wrong (and save some money) I have searched the same flights on 3 different computers and 2 phones, but checked the same flight at least 10 times on the initial computer without clearing cookies or switching inprivate on.

No change. It's still 231 euro like it was about 3 weeks ago when I first looked.

(Lufthansa)

[Mehitabel6]

There are 2 issues.
Prices will go up the nearer you get and so , if you can, book early.
Clearing cookies will get you back to the first price that you searched for, on the same day.

[Mehitabel6]

Since clearing cookies takes seconds to do you may at least try it.

[Shakey1500]

"Lovely graphs" Ego

Perhaps the folk saying it doesn't happen have used sites that don't adopt this behaviour??

I'm in the "it does happen" camp.

Being as I'm incapacitated I'm up for the challenge of an MN study

[NiceBitOfCheese]

Surely someone on MN works in IT for one of the companies which do the algorithms behind the scenes, and can confirm the complex programming which is carried out to achieve this?

[PatriciaHolm]

This is quite an interesting article on Dynamic pricing for those interested;

www.forbes.com/sites/gregpetro/2015/04/17/dynamic-pricing-which-customers-are-worth-the-most-amazon-delta-airlines-and-staples-weigh-in/?utm_campaign=yahootix&partner=yahootix

[PatriciaHolm]

And page 346 in this preview has a quote from Alaska airlines explicitly about cookie based pricing;

books.google.co.uk/books?id=ZW2u5LOmbs4C&pg=PA346&lpg=PA346&dq=airlines+dynamic+pricing+cookies&source=bl&ots=BYZjvc3hxj&sig=Cm2x3YYR_1AvTVUAZs9ksoXaoPQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAzgKahUKEwic2O6erozGAhUql9sKHRmoAEw#v=onepage&q=airlines dynamic pricing cookies&f=false

[BertieBotts]

Interesting - IP addresses aren't accurate "to a zip code" are they? They certainly aren't in the UK. They locate you to your nearest big server, usually. Perhaps the servers are more numerous in the US or zip codes are much bigger than I realise.

[PatriciaHolm]

Zipcode districts tend to be much bigger; there are 42,000 zip codes in the US whereas the UK has something like 1.8 million postcodes!

Geolocation software in your phone is clearly much more accurate and is increasingly used to target ads to you though.

[DrJacoby]

There was one of those "experts spill all" threads on Reddit and it was confirmed a number of times that the cookie thing was a myth. I book a lot of flights, travelling 5-6 times a year and I agree it's a myth .

[Shakey1500]

Ok. DH and I have just, at the same time, searched for exactly the same flight, same day, same amount of bods on a certain airline's website, both selected paying by debit card (sometimes a difference in price with a CC).

I'm using laptop, DH is using a phone and there is a price difference of £13 (ok not a great deal but still)

It's a route we've been selecting frequently on both devices.

[Shakey1500]

Just done another airline, difference of £12...

[muminhants1]

I've tried using an incognito window and I got exactly the same prices as I did when I didn't. I don't believe that airlines increase the price next time you look. I was kind of hoping that it was true, so I could get lower prices on the next search!

As for Amazon prices, they change all the time. Sometimes I have something in my "buy later" basket and the price decreases so I don't think there's anything sinister going on.

[Aridane]

I thins BridgetsMummy - repeating until she is blue in the face - is correct that airlines prices don't increase because you repeated the search in the same browser.

However, companies use cookie history and other matters - eg whether you are using a Mac or are a humble Windows user- for 'behavioural economics' to direct you to better priced (ie for the vendor) priced products and services. So a more expensive boutique hotel may appear higher in search results for a better heeled Mac user.

Can post some links on this, if wanted