The Truth About Whether Airlines Jack Up Prices If You Keep Searching the Same Flight

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The Truth About Whether Airlines Jack Up Prices If You Keep Searching the Same Flight
By Lucinda Shen/ Travel/ Coastal Living/ coastalliving.com

To make sure the right ads get to the people most interested in it, Google shows ads based on its users’ search history. A user searching for “coffee” for example may see an ad for a coffee mug on the next page. But can airlines also harness that same personal data to increase the price of a particular flight?

Consumers may wonder whether airlines and ticketing websites raise airfares for consumers who research a specific route on their computer. However, airlines say prices change not because of a consumer’s search history on a website, or their cookies, but because of inventory updates or glitches on the website, FareCompare’s Rick Seaney said in an email.

“If the airlines were to raise prices because of browser cookies (targeted individually) there would be air travel whistleblowers and senators running to microphones for legislation to prevent it,” said Seaney. “What people see when they shop multiple times and prices are changing is a reflection of inventory changes, data caching techniques and the fact that prices generally get more expensive closer to departure date, even within a day.”...."

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Richard

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

I can't say whether that happens with air fares. I have seen it one time with car rentals, using Hotwire.

I was quoted a rate, didn't take it right away. When I came back about four hour later, the same reservations came back at a higher rate. I repeated the search, and got the same high rate again. I went to a different computer, entered the same search, and got the first initial rate. Going back to the first computer I loaded the original search from the browser history, and got the original rate again. This time I booked.

Then, just to see what would happen, I went back to the second computer and repeated the search about one hour later (giving time for the Hotwire session to expire). This time the second computer came back with the higher.

 

[PigsDad]

It was a few years ago, but it definitely happened to me when I was searching for flights for our trip. It was a United flight, searching via Kayak. I had done a few searches, and when I went back and did the searches again (trying to decide between dates and flights), the price on the direct flight jumped up $30 or $40. Then I opened an "in private" window (or whatever they are called) that doesn't use or save any cookies and did the same search, and it was back down to the original price. So back to the first window and another search, and the price was even higher again!

After that experience, I always do my final price searching in an "in private" window.

Kurt

 

[moonstone]

I think it not only matters how many times you searched for a flight, rental car or hotel room but also where you are searching from. I have seen big price differences in searching for the same thing from our home in Canada or when we are in the USA or even in Belize.

The first winter we were in Belize I was searching for a room or cabin on Caye Caulker for when our DD came for a visit. I had looked at one particular place from home but when I got to Belize the rates seemed cheaper. I got DD (while still at home) to look at the same place for the same dates as I was looking at, and sure enough I was seeing rates around $20./night less in Belize than what DD was seeing from Canada.

The next winter DD found a really cheap flight to Orlando so she could spend a week with us when we drove over from Belize at the end of our stay. Since we were driving across I-10 we didn't want to detour down to Orlando on the way to St. Augustine, so we told DD to rent a car and drive herself up to our timeshare. I gave her some discount rental car sites and told her the prices I had found for her dates. When she looked at the same websites from home (Ontario) she got prices hundreds higher than what I was seeing. We even sent each other screen shots to prove that we were looking at the same thing. Needless to say I booked her a car from Belize!


~Diane

 

[isisdave]

This is making me reconsider using a VPN. I didn't bother while in Europe this year, but maybe it's worthwhile to make travel bookings "from Belize" or other countries.

I know that I saw a similar article years ago and tried clearing cookies and using another computer, which seemed to verify results reported here. Nowadays, airlines often promise "the lowest fare or we'll refund the difference", plus there are lots of others that probably won't jack up the price.

I fear the concern about legislators running to microphones is not justified.