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Over the last few weeks I've been looking at booking some long-haul flights. Prices have seemed pretty reasonable and haven't gone up much, if at all. The only reason I haven't bought already is I'm waiting for some life scheduling issues to resolve themselves.
Yesterday I was using a shared, public computer and had some time to kill so I did a quick search. Prices had jumped by at least 200 pounds on most of my top choice options and some previously available flights seemed unavailable, despite trying a few different searches to find them. Today I have checked again on my own computer and the good deals from before are back. Same dates, airlines, everything... What's going on?
Pretty sure there is a dev from
Skyscanner who posts on here...
Pretty sure there is a dev from
Skyscanner who posts on here…
If the prices all jump up again in the next 15 minutes I'm going to cut the power and put my tinfoil hat on.
You got one set of prices on your own PC where your activity is being tracked and the seller knows something about you, and different prices on a commonly used PC where they don't know they are selling specifically to you? That doesn't sound too implausible.
That doesn’t sound too implausible.
What that sky scanner, worked that out and sent a memo to the airlines to up the pries they are scanning through and bounce them back higher?
Plenty of January sale fares out at the moment, possibly released in batches - when are the flights you are booking for?
Not a dev, but hi that's me!
100% not the case. I have read some other sites may do this, but it's not something we do, it's covered in this article https://www.skyscanner.net/news/tips/do-cookies-increase-flight-prices
Thanks for the replies.
Flights are from NZ/Oz to London in March. I guess the batch theory might explain it but it was more than one airline.
I've repeated the search using a VPN and a different browser and get the same (lower) prices. It's looking most likely I made a mistake with the searches on the shared computer but I can't think what, as I made several different searches.
What that sky scanner, worked that out and sent a memo to the airlines to up the pries they are scanning through and bounce them back higher?
Could be as simple as the aggregator informing the sellers that a known user has looked at prices several times this week, so they are keen, and some of the sellers deciding to return a discounted price because they want to capture the sale. On the public computer they don't necessarily have that information, so prices might be higher.However, the Skyscanner person has confirmed they don't do that sort of thing.
There was a programme on R4 about this.
Prices will vary depending on your ip address, the type of phone or device you are using (cheap China phone will generally show lower prices than a high end iPhone or Galaxy) and even your commute.
Have tried, but can't find it on iplayer. Might have been some time ago.
Scary stuff...!
Im sure holiday companys do this to some extent. Profiling your customer by what phone they use is scary and tbh very clever. I wonder what the % of hit rate they have using product profiling like that.
Very 1984.
But also be very careful who you buy tickets from. Even on skyscanner you have the quoted price not being the price they try and charge ....
Profiling your customer by what phone they use is scary and tbh very clever.
If this is what's going on then my new MacBook is paying for itself already! It brings up some questions though. I'd always seen web tracking and targeted ads as a bad thing. I run ad/tracker blocking software and use a VPN when I remember to turn it on. If I am being profiled in this instance then obviously those precautions aren't working, but also the profile has a very real benefit for me.
I guess it comes down to the same question of what is my privacy worth to me..?
Even on skyscanner you have the quoted price not being the price they try and charge ….
Everyone is on the lowest possible price, not the one you want to buy.
Anyway it takes about 5 mins to check on 2 or 3 sites for the same deal and compare, then you can go direct to the airline and book there.
I guess I've been in more competitive markets for most of my flights