An FYI to folk booking tickets online: if you notice price jumps between the first time you look and when you are ready to book, delete cache and empty cookies.
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@luckychronic @CStamp Where?
Cuz if it hapoens in #Germany I'm shure #ConsumerProtection like @Bundesverband would love to know...
@kkarhan @luckychronic @CStamp @Bundesverband It's definitely happening in Germany, try booking Ryanair or KLM/Air-France
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@luckychronic @kkarhan @CStamp FWIW, I've never seen this happen when booking from Austria. I mean, sure, airline pricing is confusing. But there is a certain number of seats at each price, and people will buy them. And the available seats for each price tend to get recalculated/re-allocated once a week. But outside of that, the prices quoted for the same itinerary won't change. (Close to the flight date with few seats left it can of course sell out quickly.)
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@luckychronic @kkarhan @CStamp FWIW, I've never seen this happen when booking from Austria. I mean, sure, airline pricing is confusing. But there is a certain number of seats at each price, and people will buy them. And the available seats for each price tend to get recalculated/re-allocated once a week. But outside of that, the prices quoted for the same itinerary won't change. (Close to the flight date with few seats left it can of course sell out quickly.)
@luckychronic @kkarhan @CStamp The prices also don't change when logged into the airline website vs not, or on different devices. My wife (not logged in) will sometimes find a specific flight at a particular price on the iPad, and I can log in with my account on the desktop and get the same price for the same itinerary.
One thing that can mess it up: search for price for 1 person, then actually try to book for N>1 pax. (If # tickets at that price is <N, you all pay the next price level.) -
@CStamp Try not flying.
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An FYI to folk booking tickets online: if you notice price jumps between the first time you look and when you are ready to book, delete cache and empty cookies. The airline deleted their post a short time later because someone was being too helpful.
Just a reminder of something I think about every time I se a Trivago ad. Why do hotels offer the same rooms at different prices on different websites. Why do customers put up with it. And shouldn't the lowest price be on the hotel's website which would encourage customers to go there first.
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@luckychronic @kkarhan @CStamp The prices also don't change when logged into the airline website vs not, or on different devices. My wife (not logged in) will sometimes find a specific flight at a particular price on the iPad, and I can log in with my account on the desktop and get the same price for the same itinerary.
One thing that can mess it up: search for price for 1 person, then actually try to book for N>1 pax. (If # tickets at that price is <N, you all pay the next price level.)@luckychronic @kkarhan @CStamp I guess I should qualify that we tend to fly with Lufthansa Group (LH, Austrian, Swiss) or if we have to, Ryanair, because they happen to fly relevant routes and minimise flight km for our location. We've also recently booked flights with various Asian airlines (inc budget) & didn't notice anything weird going on with their prices either.
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@CStamp I haven't tested this but I hear if you book the same flight from a different country/area it could change price also. That sounds confusing but say you want a flight from Dallas to NY. If you book while in Dallas you will get one price but if you use a VPN to connect from say Colombia and try to book the same flight you could get a lower price.
As I said, I didn't test it but airline fees are stupid and inconsistent.
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@WeirdWriter @CStamp That's so bad. Just squeezing their customer base until there's nothing left. That's how capitalism works.
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An FYI to folk booking tickets online: if you notice price jumps between the first time you look and when you are ready to book, delete cache and empty cookies. The airline deleted their post a short time later because someone was being too helpful.
Name it what you will, it's gouging no matter what!
It is unethical and immoral and these common criminals belong behind bars. The End -
An FYI to folk booking tickets online: if you notice price jumps between the first time you look and when you are ready to book, delete cache and empty cookies. The airline deleted their post a short time later because someone was being too helpful.
@CStamp While you are at it, please consider the full range of ways you are being stolen from:
https://www.deceptive.design/ -
An FYI to folk booking tickets online: if you notice price jumps between the first time you look and when you are ready to book, delete cache and empty cookies. The airline deleted their post a short time later because someone was being too helpful.
@CStamp oh that's Evil
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@luckychronic @kkarhan @CStamp @Bundesverband you can exploit this too - about 10 min before I need to go I start checking bolt and uber and then stop and give algorithm some time to give me the best price;)
@DMTomas @luckychronic @kkarhan@jorts.horse @Bundesverband Take a cab. Surge pricing IS evil.
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Just a reminder of something I think about every time I se a Trivago ad. Why do hotels offer the same rooms at different prices on different websites. Why do customers put up with it. And shouldn't the lowest price be on the hotel's website which would encourage customers to go there first.
@the5thColumnist I think some of that has to do with how much the company charges the hotels to list them. For the hotels, it’s a way to be discovered. When I travelled more, I would use something like Expedia to find a place, then book directly with the hotel. Their prices were typically lower “in person” and I liked that they didn’t have to give away part of their profits. (I rarely stayed in a big chain hotel.)
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An FYI to folk booking tickets online: if you notice price jumps between the first time you look and when you are ready to book, delete cache and empty cookies. The airline deleted their post a short time later because someone was being too helpful.
@CStamp I've noticed this on basically every website I've ever bought things from that wasn't a mom and pop shop. This is the first time I've seen a company admit to doing it. Keep an eye out for the writing style of their social media to change in case they sack the person who said this.
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An FYI to folk booking tickets online: if you notice price jumps between the first time you look and when you are ready to book, delete cache and empty cookies. The airline deleted their post a short time later because someone was being too helpful.
@CStamp
Airlines have been doing this forever. It's not like it's a secret. -
@CStamp For me the biggest surprise is that they make it that easy. I had been under the impression most of these companies were using IP addresses, geolocation, advanced browser fingerprinting, and search history correlation to identify people even across cache clears and different browsers.
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@CStamp For me the biggest surprise is that they make it that easy. I had been under the impression most of these companies were using IP addresses, geolocation, advanced browser fingerprinting, and search history correlation to identify people even across cache clears and different browsers.
@diazona @CStamp that stuff requires more infrastructure on their side, like databases to store your identifiers.. while valuable for ad companies, presumably it doesn't make they cut for airlines.. so they do the easier thing and just store information in your browser (cache, local storage, index db, cookies) .. that's my guess
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An FYI to folk booking tickets online: if you notice price jumps between the first time you look and when you are ready to book, delete cache and empty cookies. The airline deleted their post a short time later because someone was being too helpful.
@CStamp @artbysarahsammis would using an incognito window work?
