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.

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

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 – Dispatches – The truth about cheap flights.

Here’s a link to the documentary

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.