Read
this article this morning
She reckons (and I have read this elsewhere) that - especially airline/travel websites - will start to jack up their prices if they recognise you as a previous visitor.
So I wondered what the more techie Lifers advise about how to get round this tactic. The three options seem to be:
- delete cookies
- use private/incognito browsing option
- if you have a VPN, switch "countries"
Is it all about your IP address? do all three options above disguise your IP address?
and if you log in your loyalty club membership number does that blow your cover?
Anyone had first hand experience of prices rising before their wondering eyes? Or getting lower prices after doing one of the above and going back to get a quote?
bastards! (them, not you :-) )
Comments
The best bet is...using a proxy or VPN when you're window-shopping. That way when you make your choice you can use the legitimate way to pay and it will register as your first visit.
Amazing the effect a 'is that the best price you can do?' has.
Virtually every organisation gives staff discounts. No skin off their nose if they make that available to Jo public if they get the sale.
Skyscanner a price is from the airline/holiday company direct so they do not even know who is requesting info.
if you can get through quickly, maybe, bearing in mind the call may not be toll free. Have you actually done this successfully with an airline? Most companies like to claim that their best prices are on the web, because then they cut out the cost of their sales staff.
We also use your search and purchasing history, from which we can determine, socio/economic class, willingness to spend etc to determine the sort of price you'll pay. For example, if you've searched for flights to France on google but not clicked on anything you'll still probably find a price rise on flights to France as it shows that you've been interested. However, data is expensive to store so most only bother keeping around 2 months worth up to a maximum of 6.
The same thing is done for anything on price comparison sites, from credit cards to cars. Our clients pay good money to look attractive on price comparison sites.
Trick is you need to know what you should be paying for a week at xyz all inclusive hotel in may so as not to get your pants pulled down. It's tricky but doable. Also cookies. Even this site uses them in its adverts which is the point I suppose. Although I don't know why the advert down the left is offering me knee high boots.....
What did the Telegraph say?
So when you speak about "my" search and posting history, is it all based on the IP address? If so, and I set my VPN to, well, Belgium, have I eluded you?
A more recent controversy in the ad world is Facebook, turns out they've been grossly overestimating their video metrics. Essentially we pay Facebook on a per view basis and they've been counting a "view" as 3 seconds without making it clear to us. So in turn our clients have been paying far more than they should've been!
I know that sounds a bit like saying "global warming isn't real, it was freezing cold yesterday" but it's just my personal experience that I haven't noticed flight prices go up the more I search in say a 48 hour period. I would expect them to increase week on week, regardless of my browsing history.
One thing I did notice with flights is that prices were (slightly) cheaper at off-peak times ie midweek rather than at the weekend.
The current format being 4 banks of 3 numbers less than 256. This is why we are switching from IPv4 format (192.168.1.254 for instance) to IPv6 (I leave you to look that up if you are really that interested!) at the moment.
If you have a security cam or are a gamer you may have requested a static IP address that does not change. So it'll be cookies, as only your provider and your network operator (BT/virgin) will know your definite Ip at any moment.
A) always open / click on a few sights so they can see you are shopping around and
Probably rubbish, haven't tried it but maybe worth trying?
Airlines and train companies often offer the first few seats on a particular service at a ridiculously low price. But while a punter is looking at these seats, the offer will disappear. If no booking is actually made the cheap seats eventually become available again.
So if the prices suddenly seem to be shooting up , it's probably worth waiting a while and trying again. It may even be your own earlier visit that is still blocking the cheap seats!
In the days before Eurostar let you choose your seat, I used to make repeated requests for a train on different browsers until I got seats I Iiked. Sometimes I "blocked" dozens of seats before I got the ones I wanted. Occasionally the price would go up to the next tier and I would have to wait around twenty minutes for everything to clear.