Does the price go up if you look at flight options too many times?

Question for those in the know about these things.

I have heard that if you keep hitting on a particular flight/route/date combo while researching your travel options you will see the price go up because the airlines' software is designed to detect repeated hits and put the price up after a certain number of hits.

Is there any truth to this? If there is, would it apply only to the airlines' websites or would doing your research through the ITA Matrix have the same effect?

Thanks for any insight. :)

No, another common myth. They could care less how often you look, or through which channel. They don't keep tabs on you. You only matter to them when you enter your credit card number.

I think it is likely a myth, but there is no way we will ever know if it is true or not, unless someone with inside knowledge exposes it.

What does happen....time passes and seats are booked....you view the fares along the way, but the number of seats available at fare 'x' is satisfied, then you will see the next higher set of fares (fare 'y) that you can choose from.

There are a few other details, but you get the picture. :D

Is there any truth to this?

Imagine that you're searching for a flight from X to Y. There are three airlines offering non-stop flights. Airline A offers a fare of $355. Airline B offers a fare of $360. Airline C offers a fare of $365. All other things being equal, airline A looks like the most inviting prospect, but you're searching a few times to make sure you understand all the fees and extras that each airline will charge. Because airline A is the cheapest, you're looking most closely at what it does.

Now further imagine that this rumour is true, and airline A then starts putting up its price because you've been searching over and over again. The airline A price goes up to $375.

Tell me. Are you going to:-

1. Notice that airline A is now the most expensive of the three airlines, and say "OMG, I have to book airline A RIGHT NOW at the new higher fare because it's suddenly got more expensive and the price might keep on going up"?; or
   
2. Notice that airline B is now the cheapest of the three and buy a ticket from airline B instead?
   

In other words, in today's world what possible advantage can airline A gain from putting up the price just because you've been searching over and over again?

I have yet to hear any convincing explanation as to how it can possibly be in airline A's interests to do this.

On the other hand, those of us who are frequently buying tickets will frequently see the price go up simply because other people have bought tickets on that flight and taken out the cheap inventory, so that we've just missed out on it. Those who buy air tickets once a year may sometimes mistakenly underestimate how often airlines sell air tickets, or how many other people are buying air tickets every second.

I think it is likely a myth, but there is no way we will ever know if it is true or not, unless someone with inside knowledge exposes it.

The reason this myth keeps appearing is the "one-to-one personalized shopping experience" with "customized pricing" is a concept some retailers want to embrace. The reality is it is incredibly complicated to do.

With airline pricing where it is offered through so many different distribution channels (direct, and various online travel agency sites) it is virtually impossible to do this kind of thing.

Logically, it would make no sense for prices to increase simply because you kept checking them. Higher prices makes it less likely you'll book.

Hey, just look once and do it on Tuesday night at midnight. Preferably when there is a full moon out. Even better if it is 72 days out from flight time. And don't forget to clear your cookies.

:)

Logically, it would make no sense for prices to increase simply because you kept checking them. Higher prices makes it less likely you'll book.

There is also the predictable human behavior that "if the price goes up a little, I better book now, before it goes up again".

There is also the predictable human behavior that "if the price goes up a little, I better book now, before it goes up again".

I just can't see how it would work with air travel today when you would simply switch browser tabs, press refresh, and go to the next cheapest vendor.

Thanks everyone for your comments and FlyerTalker for giving me a laugh. :D

The trip I am trying to put together is in fact a bit like Globaliser's Gap jeans analogy, so I was a bit concerned about the idea that I might be pushing the price up as I go round and round in circles struggling to find a non-existent even halfway sensible option.

And, yes indeed, CruiserBruce, "better book it now before it goes up again" sounds exactly like something I would do! :o

So, I travel for a living for business, and I also put together the proposals and subsequently the travel costs for myself and my colleagues...so if myself or my colleague is traveling, say, KC to Singapore on April 25th, I'll check flights from KC to Singapore on April 25th several times - when I initially put together the proposal, when we get the contract, when I decide who is going, and when it comes time to book (the latter I usually look a few times before ultimately deciding which flight to pick). In my 10+ years of doing this, I've never, ever, ever seen proof of this. Sometimes it's the same, sometimes it goes up, sometimes it goes down.

But Zach...the conspiracy theorists will say that's because the airline knows you are a super-duper, plutonium level elite and they know not to screw around with you. It's Joe Blow that they do this to.

:D

(Seriously, I must concur with Zach's assessment)

And I haven't seen this even though I make independent checks of the price that the airline website is quoting, usually using ITA Software's Matrix tool. If the airline increased the price just because I've been searching a lot, ITA would basically point that out because it would still be showing the price that the cookieless browser would show. The airline does not have a clue who is searching via ITA, because it's intermediated through a GDS, it's aggregated through the ITA gateway (so the airline couldn't know if it's one person search 20 times or 20 people each searching once), and I believe that the ITA tool sometimes uses an element of caching.

You should clear your cookie cache before looking again, this way it doesn’t show what you were looking at. This is what we have learned from some IT gurus.

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You should clear your cookie cache before looking again, this way it doesn’t show what you were looking at. This is what we have learned from some IT gurus.

Any chance that you might tell us who these "IT gurus" are? Where you got this published information? What was the basis for their recommendation?

Or are they just unknown urban legends of the internet?

You should clear your cookie cache before looking again, this way it doesn’t show what you were looking at. This is what we have learned from some IT gurus.

Sent from my iPad using Forums

This is an example of a fallacy of presumption. The conclusion (clear cookies) presumes a problem (airlines manipulate pricing according to individual online searches) that does not exist. I know of no one who understands the pricing algorithms developed by airlines to maximize revenue. Those who do understand the intricacies do not reveal them. IT "gurus" are not "gurus" about the economics of airline pricing strategies.

What if every time I checked the price of a stock it went up? Well, clear my cookies and that won't happen anymore. There's as much logic there as in the airline pricing fallacy. In other words, none.

With so many people continuously checking prices of a particular flight, the price of every flight would increase daily.

With so many people continuously checking prices of a particular flight, the price of every flight would increase daily.

I think the point of the fallacy (which I have personally never found proof of) is that an airline sees that you, personally, keep checking the same destinations on the same dates, and since people tend to do most of their searching from the same IP address or device, said airline will start bumping up your fare to get you to book. The argument is more that it's based on you personally and your searches, not everyone combined.

It would be an incredibly risky move for, say, American to keep pushing up the price on you, because at some point they could very well push it above all other airlines and push you to bring your money elsewhere. It's one of the many reasons that it's clearly just not something that happens.

This is an example of a fallacy of presumption. The conclusion (clear cookies) presumes a problem (airlines manipulate pricing according to individual online searches) that does not exist. I know of no one who understands the pricing algorithms developed by airlines to maximize revenue. Those who do understand the intricacies do not reveal them. IT "gurus" are not "gurus" about the economics of airline pricing strategies.

 

The cookie thing is nonsense. The same flights are sold through to many different channels and web-sites.

As for no one understanding how airlines price well that is a bit simpler to understand.

They create buckets, and sub-buckets and sub-sub buckets. Lets say all of the economy seats on a given flight are "Y". They create a subset of "Y" called "Q" that might only have 10 seats.

If you fly Vancouver to New York, Y may be a $1,000 and Q might be $300.

If the direct flight still has a few "Q" seats left they will be offered $300. Once they are also sold, only "Y" will be available. If there is a Q seat on a Vancouver-> Toronto flight and another Toronto->New York flight also has empty Q seats then you will be offer that for $300.

In my example I used only two buckets "Y" and "Q" as a subset of "Y". In reality there may be 30 or more of these different categories on any given flight.

The software just searches for what is available and presents it to you.

The "art and science" of this is deciding how many of these fare categories to create and how many seats to make available in each category. That is where they use a combination of sophisticated software and employees who monitor and adjust to what competitors are doing and how flights are filling up. They usually do this by opening up more seats in one category and emptying out other categories.

I've understood the concepts and execution of fare bucket stratagems for years. It's the creation and application of the underlying algorithms that are not available to the public. Infrequent flyers continue to look for "tricks" when there are no "tricks."

I've understood the concepts and execution of fare bucket stratagems for years. It's the creation and application of the underlying algorithms that are not available to the public. Infrequent flyers continue to look for "tricks" when there are no "tricks."

Agreed.

From time to time someone in the airline makes a mistake in how they configure these rules and there is a way of getting a good deal however that is tends to be short lived.

You should clear your cookie cache before looking again, this way it doesn’t show what you were looking at. This is what we have learned from some IT gurus.

And it makes no sense for airlines to do so, for reasons which I've already posted above.