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I've heard that budget airlines put the price of a flight up after you have browsed the options and then go back a second time to make your booking.
Is this just an urban myth?
If not, how do I stop it happening? Incognito browsing, delete cookies, or go round to somebody else's house to book?
Could be coincidence but happened to me today, looked at flight last night £42, went book this morning was £49.
We believe it to be true. We use multiple devices, eg browse on phone/ipad book on computer
We did discuss this on a thread recently, Uber commented that customers with low battery where more likely to accept surge pricing. Now they claim they don't use this info to set fares but it does give you a hint about what info they know. An ex team mate of mine used to work at Amazon where his job was to look at behavioural patterns in the browsing/purchase data. It would be most surprising if the airlines didn't employ such information in setting prices
Gf works in affiliate marketing - this is 100% true. Clear your cache.
The prices go up the nearer the date to the flight, so if you wait they increase.
^^ drac prices vary, they offen dip a few weeks before the flight
@north perfect example - you are still going to book it at £49 vs £42 - an easy £7 extra for them
Perfect example North you waited a day and the prices went up.
Always browse in incognito mode, logging in only at the purchase moment. Generally I've not noticed too much buggering around by easyjet although there were rumours that regular flyers would get charged more if they had previously paid a high price.
Obviously Drac's point is also correct.
Pricesly.
Easy way to check is if North gives us details of his flight.
Yeh clear your cache before going to book
Delete their cookie and the flight prices reset (which can be a big drop).
Cookies. Use private browsing or keep you low offer open in one tab while you browse for more in another.
Flight is Newcastle to Belfast Thursday 16th at 20:00. It went up that much between 00:300 and 09:30 last night / this morning.
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Depends on other budget airline competition for the route. If I fly to london airports theres 10 operators across 3 airports so prices are low. Manchester less so with 3 operators. So hi competition keeps prices low its best when ry and ez slug it out against each other as the others have to follow their pricing.
as for prices increasing closer to flight yes they do...trains use the same model
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Partly cookies, partly interest. Have had it with a group of us individually booking and the prices shot up within an hour, yet individually we're not repeatedly checking / cookie bound. Seen this happen several times. Get one person to book the lot and less likely to happen.
That's with a return bruneep.
Wow. This happened to us. Didn't realise it was a deliberate "thing". Wish I'd cleared my cookies before booking.
So far it's not proving to be the case.
So far it's not proving to be the case.
My Mrs does this sort of thing at work.
I'm told it very much is the case, and she's shown me it happening when booking flights in the past. ctrl-shift-p is your friend.
Yet today there seems to be no evidence of it.
This was a good documentary on the subject not so long back - [url= http://www.channel4.com/info/press/news/the-truth-about-cheap-flights-channel-4-dispatches ]Dispatches - The truth about cheap flights.[/url]
[url= http://show.tubeseries.net/tvshow/83231/2016/12 ]Here's a link to the documentary[/url]
Yet today there seems to be no evidence of it.
Must never happen then.
Try your local travel agent for Easy Jet, we were pleasantly surprised.
Drac we've bought many flights more cheaply by waiting a bit, it's untrue to say prices always go up. I am would imagine they have a curve for expected sales and if they are below that then prices may go down.
We checked a price of a flight before going to work. Was running late so decided to book once we got in.
Surprise surprise the fair had gone up in half an hour.
Yeah occasionally they have sell offs too where they drop, when I use to fly to Geneva semi-regular it would happen occasionally. More often than not it went up nearer the time though.
Price is still showing £49.99 3 hours after checking and around 24 after North booked.
They use supply/demand algorithms. If lots of people are looking at it, the price goes up. Through cookies they'll be tracking what you're looking for as well so if you keep returning to a flight or keep trying alternatives for the same destination (let's say you want to go to the Algarve and you're searching (eg) Liverpool, Manchester, East Midlands all to Faro), it'll very quickly work out your destination and start subtly increasing the prices too.
I sorted a flight to Malaga a while ago, searching various departure airports and flight times, then going back to the place I was staying at to look at airport pickup times and so on. When I went to book, I knew what flights I wanted, cleared out the cache, all the cookies, logged in and went direct to that flight and it was £40 return cheaper than it had been the previous day when I was still searching.
Similarly, on just-released flights or on poor sellers, it'll drop the price.
One tip with EasyJet is to book the Flexi Fare. It's more expensive than the basic fare (although it varies as to how much more) but, 24hrs after booking, you can change the date by up to a week. So if you want to fly out on Friday but flights are expensive, book the much cheaper Tuesday departure flexifare, wait 24hrs then change the booking to Friday.
That makes more sense Crazy, a combination of events rather than people looking previously.
Had the 'interest' thing on a group trip to Morzine- we all booked separately on the same evening for the same flight and there was a significant variation between the first and last to click buy.
It also seems daft that they wouldn't use their cookies given the info is there.
When I've looked into booking further afield, I found the time of day also plays a part in price increases. I read on skyscanner some places have reduced prices on a Tuesday morning after the weekend bookings have taken place.
Seats are all priced differently, the first x number at the lowest price, the next y number at a higher price etc. As has been said above it's all controlled by the airlines own set of rules. If the flight is selling out fast the prices will rise more quickly, if its slow the prices will stay low for longer.
Some companies definitely used to do it but there was a big fuss with trading standards getting involved a fair few years ago. Not sure of the outcome but I've not seen it in recent years.
Easy enough to check by searching on your mobile if you think you've been had, which I've done before quite often and it is always the same price.
The will bump prices based on forecast demand but that's for everyone, not just the person whose recently browsed.
The airlines definitely still do it. They employ whole teams of people to manage seat pricing. Not sure what the problem with it is. About 70% of seats are sold at a loss anyway. No need for trading standards to raise an eyebrow. Any company is perfectly allowed and able to change their prices whenever they feel like it. Airline seats are not the only product out there that you can purchase more cheaply if you book early.
Surely this is something which is very easy to check (and prove one way or the other)? If you suspect price has been bumped up, simply go to incognito and try again from there.
That isn't the point being discussed wobbli
The will bump prices based on forecast demand but that's for everyone, not just the person whose recently browsed.
From a number of friends who work in the industry this is the correct answer - you are personally not targeted for a higher price but the more traffic to the site looking for a specific (essentially perishable ) good the greater the statistical chance of selling it so the less a price incentive is needed to shift it. There will also be a built in price adjustment over time to the base price with a ramp in the last days. This is an alteration to the old model of selling off everything mega cheap at the last minute just to get shot. The theory being it discourages folk leaving it super later for a bargain and engenders a feeling of uncertainty which promotes earlier buying (at higher prices).
Prices go up and come down according to demand at the server side, it's got nothing to do with your browsing history/cache or cookies, imo.
The will bump prices based on forecast demand but that's for everyone, not just the person whose recently browsed.
I would have thought it will be illegal to apply different prices to different people?
Prices do change quickly across the board in the travel industry though. If you go back to it at a later date, there'll be a good chance it's changed, for everyone.
Exactly butcher. That is why trading standards got involved iirc.
Anyhow think there's been enough confirmation from others that you don't need to clear cache & cookies as you'll get the same price as everyone else at that point in time.
[contains sweary bits, justified]
Well I went incognito as I checked a bunch of prices for flights to Dubrovnik in 2 weeks time and then went back and booked the first one I looked at for the same price started with. Not exactly a scientific sample but I'm happy.
Yep once somebody can post the screenshots from the difference browsing tracked and untracked I'll believe it's targeted. Nobody managed that yet? As for the group thing there will be pricing across the plane so if your group buys the last at a band the next will buy more expensive seats and so on. Virgin and qantas here tell you how many are left at the price.
Balancing demand with price is clever though, persuade those who are price sensitive to take the 6am flight and late night option while saving space on the nice times for those who are willing to pay for it.
Still £49 this am in normal mode and private.
It's not illegal to charge people different prices for the same products. Do you think everyone who bought a brand new Ford Focus yesterday even from the same Ford Dealership got the same price and deal? The price is just what a vendor offers in exchange for a given product or service. They can offer whatever price they feel like and change it at will and that price can be negotiated and the purchaser can decide if the price is good or not and ultimately decide to buy or not.
Airlines stimulate demand by flexing seat prices - and they're in constant competition with other airlines and the only way they can compete is to flex the ticket price. Not a Trading Standards Issue - unless there was some form of organised price fixing going on.
The thing that I would have thought was a trading standards issue is advertising a flight for a tenner and it actually costing you £60 after all the taxes and other hidden charges are slapped on after you've bought that £10 flight.
Local authorities do not have school holidays at the same time. Consequently I find the prices from East Midlands and Stansted vary considerably in response to local demand. This has saved us lots, even on cheap flights.
I thought it was well known that prices go up and up.
Forget your cache, it's your I.P. address/location services you have to mask.
Frankenstein - Member
I thought it was well known that prices go up and up.
Yes but it's not personal and it's not based on you - hence nobody can post a pic of 2 separate devices showing 2 prices at the same time, If I try and book flight from here in Oz I reckon I will get the same price as you, the extra traffic may cause a price fluctuation and an increase but it's not targeted to you.
Yes but it's not personal and it's not based on you - hence nobody can post a pic of 2 separate devices showing 2 prices at the same time
So you're saying I'm lying?
It's up now to a huge £50.49
Same price private and same price using my work phone.
I can only see one pic you posted Drac.
The one pic that showed the same price as North, who said it had gone up as he'd browsed the day before.
and that being the point, the price changes but it's not personally targeted to you
Prices are unlikely to be static so it's unsurprising you'd see them go up even without any clever stuff going on in your browser. The process behind it is probably not as simple as is just continuously raising them either.
But it's probably a safe bet there's plenty of clever stuff going on in your browser that's aimed at you specifically as well as feeding into the 'bigger picture' changes. A while ago I needed to book a Friday and a Sunday night at a well-known budget hotel chain. Both nights were £45. Booked the Friday, and when I went to do the Sunday, boom- £80. Switched browsers and back to £45.
Forget your cache, it's your I.P. address/location services you have to mask.
Nope, I've deleted their cookie and had the price drop 50% and then booked the flights at the cheaper rate (having had the price jump between first and second time looking).
Easy Jet a few years back.
IP address isn't that useful if you think about offices, Unis, schools, librarys, where 100s of people are NAPTed behind a single (or handful) of public IPs.
and that being the point, the price changes but it's not personally targeted to you
Errr! Did you read the title?
We booked flights to Alicante from Newcastle a few weeks back for flying this Saturday. I used skyscanner and went direct to the easyjet site, all in tracked browsing mode. Every time the price was the same, due to faffing around we took 3 weeks to finally get the flights booked. They never went up and are still the same price now.
A lot of this may be explained by the booking system reserving seats whilst people go through the purchase, but not actually finalising. As has been said, there'll be a certain number of seats at each price, and once they're gone (or temporarily appear to be gone), the price will go up (and might go back down if the cheaper seat purchase isn't finalised).
An example from when I booked a train the other day: I found a train and clicked through to reserve a seat, but had to dash out before I paid for it. I came back a while later and my session had timed out, and when I went to book the same train, the price had gone up. I suspected my timed-out session had caused the last seat in that price band to get "stuck" as reserved in the system, so I left it and came back the next day. Luckily, the seat hadn't been booked and it was back down at the previous price.
No reason why this couldn't happen on e.g. Easyjet.