Deleting cookies/browser history before flight searches

[Rox]

What a gemfield of information!!

 

[mushez]

I am interested to read this thread, and I believe many an airline/agent is/are using cookies in many different ways. While understanding cookies well, I can understand all the reasons why.

I experienced myself only a week ago, while looking at flights from Xiamen->Singapore, one way flight, something was up and it took me a while to figure out, but when I did, it made perfect sense.

I was looking at various airlines in how to fly from Xiamen to Singapore on the 31st of March and was looking at prices on a range of options, with more timing of flights being at the foremost of my selection. After searching I found the CX price was not that much more than most of the other cheaper fares I had been presented with, so shut down my PC to go from work to home to think about which flight time I would like.

When I got home, I turned on my laptop again and brought up CX site ready to book my flights, only to find in the two hours, they had gone up 500%. I thought maybe they had had a run, so checked out the other airlines I had looked at, one being Thai Airways, and then re-checked CX again, only to find the fares had come down, not quite as cheap as I had seen 2 hours prior, but a lot lower none the less. I clicked that it had to do with what other airline sites I had open, so I opened up Xiamen Airways as well, and then did another search of CX, and bang, the prices were back down to what they were two hours prior.

So while I would agree some airlines may have a strategy to increase the prices upon looking at your cookies, others may reduce, in my experience with CX, based around your cookies and having competing airlines sites open with current search queries open on identical flight itineraries.

I guess it is a cat and mouse game of cleaning cookies and checking, and then loading your cookies and seeing what prices you are returned with.

 

[UP4014]

Good thread, stuff here I hadn't even thought about.

matt

 

[don01]

AH HA !! Now I understand what's been happening
Of Course it's all anecdotal and IMHO
I can recall having searched long and hard checking out flights for upcoming trips & holidays
( I am talking some serious searching over days and weeks )
And watching the fares starting to rise inexerably.
Then at lunch at work just doing a spot check from another IP and yep you guessed it -Bargains every where

You good Sirs & Ladies have made my week

I wonder if I now know why I abondoned that trip to Maccha Picchu because of rising costs both aerial and terrestrial

 

[albatross710]

Last night I experienced this on Qantas website. First search syd-canb global sale fares were showing up as $85, left, searched again and cheapest came up as a $139 red edeal. Cleared cookies and tried again - alas, $85 dollar fares were back!

I'm sure that the airlines can just say "yield management", "the seats were on hold elsewhere" etc etc, but how can we get to the bottom of it?

I know that we know what is going on but they must be creaming it somewhere if they can advertise low fares, get you onto their website and while you are fumbling for your points-capped frequent flyer card they can increase the price (while selling the cheaper fare to a cookie cleared browser).


So do we have an expert consumer law specialist in our forum. This practice sounds so dodgy.

 

[amp-qld]

This rip-off seems to also be prevalent amongst car hire websites. I had experienced increasing prices on a booking for Iceland and booked before the prices went up any more. When I read the article, I cleared the cookies and found a car one category up for $85 less. Luckily, I was able to cancel the first booking and get a full refund.

 

[TheInsider]

You actually think the Qantas website and it being linked to a GDS is actually doing this?
Put your tin foils hats back on please.

 

[oz_mark]

You actually think the Qantas website and it being linked to a GDS is actually doing this?
Put your tin foils hats back on please.

I've never seen this phenomena*, and certainly not on the Qantas site. There does, however, seem to be some anecdotal evidence for it happening on some sites. Unfortunately, it is going to be quite difficult to pin down wether it is cookies, or there is just something else going on.


(*Well almost never - I have had Zuji tell me a price has gone up ( a dollar or so ) mid-booking a few times, but then it subsequently drops back to the original price)

 

[RAM]

You actually think the Qantas website and it being linked to a GDS is actually doing this?
Put your tin foils hats back on please.

One travel site that was a clear giveaway was the UK site for the London Pass. I found (over the last 7 years) that if you look at the price, click to buy but do not finish the details and close it, then a day or two later do the same thing then a day or so later you receive an email offering you a 10 to 20% discount on a London pass.

Interestingly enough, I did this three times over four years and the 20% discount happened in the latest time so the cookie must not keep history over a year old - if it did then you'd expect the discount would get less over time. Discounts I got were 10% 2008, 10% 2009, 20% 2011.

Have seen fare rises when doing searches over several days on most airline specific sites (have never gone directly to a Chinese carrier though - will try that idea) and yes price has risen for non-sale flights with same ticket code. Checking on once-a-week basis for European rtn fares does not seem to get that effect on most of them though (2 exceptions Q and V Aust in last two years - where the VA one seems to reset each month though).

Having a monthly cycle say expedia aust 1st wk, uk 2nd wk etc has yielded good results. Skyscanner used to be brilliant but is nearly an also ran now unfortunately.

 

[jeff1946]

Simultaneously did the experiment with two browsers - one cleansed of all cookies, one with previously used (for same booking) cookies. Same economy trip to the US with UA $71 more with pre-used cookies!!

 

[cgichard]

I think this may have happened to me on the BA site too. I was looking at prices for SIN to LHR over several days within a week (& not clearing cookies) and the price in SGD went up by a small amount each time. At the time I assumed it was due to exchange rate movements between GBP and SGD but now I'm wondering whether it was in fact the phenomenon under discussion here.

It certainly used to happen with BMI fares ex Cardiff, but that was supposedly linked directly to the number of seats left on a given flight. The more that were already booked, the more expensive the remaining ones became.

 

[nate89]

I think this may have happened to me on the BA site too. I was looking at prices for SIN to LHR over several days within a week (& not clearing cookies) and the price in SGD went up by a small amount each time. At the time I assumed it was due to exchange rate movements between GBP and SGD but now I'm wondering whether it was in fact the phenomenon under discussion here.

It certainly used to happen with BMI fares ex Cardiff, but that was supposedly linked directly to the number of seats left on a given flight. The more that were already booked, the more expensive the remaining ones became.

I imagine there is a (slim) chance that you getting a quote from an airline may put a seat on hold for a short period of time (e.g. 15 minutes), also leading to an increase in price when you get a quote again.

 

[TheInsider]

I imagine there is a (slim) chance that you getting a quote from an airline may put a seat on hold for a short period of time (e.g. 15 minutes), also leading to an increase in price when you get a quote again.

The inventory in a GDS is priced at a set rate under a certain fare class, the inventory needs to be exhausted for it to go to a higher fare class, it doesn't happen any other way. I'm sure Amadeus, Sabre and Galileo, don't have the technology or would even care.

 

[nate89]

The inventory in a GDS is priced at a set rate under a certain fare class, the inventory needs to be exhausted for it to go to a higher fare class, it doesn't happen any other way. I'm sure Amadeus, Sabre and Galileo, don't have the technology or would even care.

Sorry maybe it is too early, but I didn't fully understand that.

Let's say there is one seat left of a certain fare class. When two people go and browse this flight, will only one see the fare? I.e. will the GDS temporarily reserve the seat for the first viewer?

Sort of like ticket sales on websites like ticketek where they hold your tickets for X minutes so you have time to go through and pay.

 

[GoldCanyon340]

The inventory in a GDS is priced at a set rate under a certain fare class, the inventory needs to be exhausted for it to go to a higher fare class, it doesn't happen any other way. I'm sure Amadeus, Sabre and Galileo, don't have the technology or would even care.

A flight can be optimised (as all QF flights are every day) and the selling class could be closed off if the optimiser decides the higher yield fares will sell. But, generally, I agree and let's get the tin foil hats back on.

 

[Jurahn]

I was a bit dubious about all this as well - but then it happened to me when on the Virgin Australia website looking for return flights in J to the US. On the "Select Flights" page, I clicked on several different date "tabs" within that week to see whether the prices were cheaper on other days, but then when clicking back to the original date tab, the flight prices had gone up by anything between $400-$800. What the ....??? I thought. OK, I thought, maybe I just missed out on the last seat at those prices. However when I went back to have a look again the next day (I have the system set to clear all cookies on exit), the original (cheaper) prices were back again. But yet again, check a different day on the Select Flights page and the prices had gone up when going back to the original date. So I closed all browser windows, cleared the cookies, went straight back in and searched again and the original prices showed up again.

So it does happen, but whether it was maybe just a "bug" with VA's new system I have no idea.

 

[don01]

OK OK I might need a tin hat and yes Amedeus may not bother with the maximising of returns
but lets face it they do use your cookies, there is enough malicious and not so malicious spy ware.
Just run a Spybot type program and watch who falls off the shelf
Gee wizz even having a pop up blocker sends some business sites into a tizz of "approve us now please"
All wth the explicit purppose of seeing what you are doing and how to make the best of it.
THAT MAY NOT BE ILLEGAL STUFF - but also the perfectly legal stuff.

Now just as a byline line - I was looking at an unusual fare for me, Perth to Brisbane to see how often and $
guess what- this is from this web page today and has been coming up since then replacing the Melbourne to Sydney one.

:shock:

BTW: apologies to cgichard this is not a reflection on your post but just to show where the add was on my screen

Could some one here be saying
"So I can see what you are looking at and I can and do react to that to suit my best intrests -"

any way cookie cutter here I come and where is my paper pirate hat - yo ho ho und a bottle o' rum

always take away a smile and a laugh

 

[albatross710]

I need to do a one day trip from BNE-MEL later this month. I've been undecided and only confirmed a note from a supplier that we will definitely be meeting. Consequently over the last couple for days we've had a few false starts with bookings to arrange times. Today I went to qantas.com.au to book the tix and noticed that as I looked at options to travel on the Thursday, Friday or Saturday that the preferred flight went from $171 to a $200 Hurry option.

hmmm, I opened a Google Chrome incognito browser window and sure enough there was the $171 fare available....hmmm. I completed the booking in the incognito browser.

After the booking was completed I checked back and refreshed the two views of the flight search and the $171 remained available in the incognito browser while only the $200 fare showed in my normal view.

A completely fresh search in Mozilla shows a $171 fare available.

Certainly I am now convinced that these activities are at play on our home turf.

Alby

 

[SeatBackForward]

Wow, if this is true, this is completely dishonest behaviour. And I would lean more to this being true than some random occurrance. Its certainly good to know there's an easy workaround though.

 

[nate89]

Just noticed this definitely happened with expedia.com.br
Was just running through the process to explain something and got the quote twice within a few minutes of each other. All of a sudden it is quoting $100 more!