[gwnn]

Has this happened to anyone else? I'm talking about dates that are about 6-10 weeks away from now. It happened to me a few times, that they got more expensive overnight after I looked them up. Isn't it annoying? Also what do you think I should do, just buy them expensive or wait if they go cheap again or never check dates without buying the tickets?

[mike777]

airline prices change every minute let alone every day.

Note if they get alot of hits for a flight they may think demand is increasing and raise the price.

Try checking prices online on a Tuesday for anyday future flights. Online prices tend to rise closer to the weekend when more people are looking. Good hunting.

[Rossoneri]

Which airline(s) is/are this/these?

Personally, I've noticed Emirates airfares going up every single time I check and they never seem to go down, so this means more of my money going to Singapore Airlines.

If it's one of the budget airlines, things might be different though.

[gwnn]

Malev (Hungarian airlines), Icelandair, Iceland Express, British and TAP (Portugal).

[Rain]

Airlines group tickets into buckets of fares.

Even for 1 class, they have multiple buckets with different prices, and small changes in rules. The rules changes mostly correspond to how easy you would be able to get refunds or make changes with no penalties or upgrade rules.

There are big agents and consolidators who buy up lots of tickets at a row. So they can easily buy up an entire bucket. Also, 6-10 weeks is a very short time away for an air tix purchase. You may get lucky and find a new sales going on somewhere, but otherwise many of the usual cheaper buckets would be taken by this time.

(Edit to add: Because of this, you may have good luck trying the agents and consolidators who bought those cheaper fare classes...)

I think you should think about priceline or award ticket if you're left with the full fare options. I remember buying a full fare economy ticket (Y) and it's more expensive than a discounted business class ticket. Makes you feel pretty stupid when you have to do something like that...unless it's reimbursable.
http://matrix.itasoftware.com/
Can use this to search.

[shyams]

Could it be an illegal use of cookies or IP addresses?

[gwnn]

i hope not

[mtvesuvius]

It's just a random number generator, come back tomorrow and try your luck again.

[barmar]

shyams, on 2011-February-04, 18:12, said:

Could it be an illegal use of cookies or IP addresses?

I heard a story on public radio a few weeks ago about online shopping sites that present different prices to customers depending on their history on the site. Frequent shoppers would see higher prices because they presumably don't need to be enticed to purchase.

I don't think this is "illegal", but maybe it depends on where you live.

[cherdano]

I once read in a blogpost that some sites ask for higher prices the second time you check, since they want you to get used to booking the first time around. Or something like that. Not sure how plausible it is, but it might be worth clearing your cookies and check again (or use a different browser).
I also read that sometimes prices depend on the weekday. For most routes, that would mean it is cheaper to book on the weekend, since you won't be mistaken for someone who is spending money from a corporate account.

[gwnn]

hahaha it worked

I don't know which, but I know I checked yesterday also and this morning I threw out the cookies and now it was cheap again (so I didn't do a scientific survey trying first this morning with cookies, then without). Well it wasn't so expensive anyway, only a difference of 25% (or 33%). It was just extremely annoying.

[phil_20686]

My experience is that airlines have 3 strategies.

1) Fixed price, varies with time to fly but not with demand. Seems like lufthansa does this.
2) Price is a function of how many seats are left on the plane. I think quantus flights to Australia use this model, so booking earlier is always cheaper.
3) Price is some function of demand, so takes into account how often a flight is looked at, how many empty seats it has, and how long until it flies. I think BA does this.

[Winstonm]

Does anyone know if this cookies-tracking pricing is used on any other types of websites other than airline ticket sales? Could I save more on Amazon books if I cleared cookies, for example?

[gwnn]

phil_20686, on 2011-February-06, 09:21, said:

My experience is that airlines have 3 strategies.

1) Fixed price, varies with time to fly but not with demand. Seems like lufthansa does this.
2) Price is a function of how many seats are left on the plane. I think quantus flights to Australia use this model, so booking earlier is always cheaper.
3) Price is some function of demand, so takes into account how often a flight is looked at, how many empty seats it has, and how long until it flies. I think BA does this.

There's some places that have a u-like curve: if you buy it very early (3 months say) then it's expensive. They say that they can sell the tickets anyway, so if they find some loser who wants to pay more, let him.