- Airline ticket prices not affected by Internet cookies, experts say
- In reality, prices are determined by demand, availability and timing.
- The best time to book is three to four months before a domestic flight.
The idea that using “incognito” mode while browsing the Internet to buy flights will prevent airlines from collecting data and charging more is just a myth, experts say.
The misconception is that airlines use cookies to track the Internet activity of potential buyers. Once they identify that someone is looking for a specific ticket, they can start increasing prices.
But economists, travel experts and booking platforms insist that this is simply not how airline tickets are priced, and it is completely false.
‘It’s the travel hacking tip that will never die. “It’s total nonsense,” said Clint Henderson, editor-in-chief of The Points Guy.
“I’ve tried it myself for two decades and have never found a cheaper deal using an incognito browser.”
The theory that blocking cookies while searching for airline tickets will result in cheaper prices is false, experts say
Google Chrome browser’s ‘incognito mode’ allows users to prevent websites from using cookies to track them
Henderson also noted a 2016 Consumer Reports Study which made 372 different queries for a series of flights over two weeks in browsers with cookies activated and deactivated.
Although the same prices were generated for almost all of them, in 42 cases there were discrepancies.
In 25 of those cases, the browser in private mode did return cheaper results, but in 17 it was more expensive.
Henderson explained how airlines actually set fares. In almost all cases, they occupy different seats in the aircraft cabin. Seats in those groups will be sold at different prices.
The most expensive cubes contain the last seats to be assigned. On the other hand, cheaper buckets will fill up sooner.
“Last-minute travel booking leads to more expensive tickets because all the cheapest fare classes have been sold out,” Henderson said.
If tickets sell quickly, airlines will close the cheapest categories and begin directing buyers to more expensive seats. If tickets sell more slowly than expected, cheaper pools will open up to sell more seats.
Certain groups, or seats within groups, will only be available within a certain period before the flight date.
Prices are therefore determined by current demand, the number of seats still available and the time of booking.
In fact, a recent study According to economists at the University of Chicago, the University of Texas, Berkeley and Yale, the prices of other similar flights offered by other airlines are not even taken into account.
A sample of rates is shown in the photo. Column 13 is the reservation class. The most expensive cubes contain the last seats to be assigned.
According to Henderson, the best thing consumers can do is set up a Google Flight Alert and monitor the price for a couple of weeks.
The optimal window is three to four months before a domestic flight and six to eight months before an international flight, he said.
By feeding the myth that rates adjust dynamically based on browsing history and interest, they are likely to generally change a lot and tend to go up.
‘When the Internet took off, suddenly consumers could see multiple prices for the same ticket on sites like Expedia or Kayak. And since then people have thought, “If they show me different prices, then the airline must be able to track me somehow.”
Another phenomenon that drives the myth is that when using a comparison site like Skyscanner or Google Flights, prices sometimes, but rarely, jump after the user is redirected to a new web page to purchase the ticket.
Experts say this is because the data they read when browsing is “cached” data. That means it can be delayed up to a few hours and only when you proceed to purchase the flight is the live price provided.
