[Anonymous]

[LouisYiakoumi]

See email from our travel booker:

“Dear All,

I have just uncovered a naughty thing BA are doing, I can only assume that other companies do it too.

I have been looking for flights to Sao Paulo for staff and BA was looking very expensive, J found a cheaper one on his computer. This surprised me, as I was looking at the same page, yet his were cheaper. I then went through and cleared cookies and went back on to the website and the prices were the same as on J’s computer. This proves that BA are putting cookies in my computer and remembering where I am interested in getting flights to and putting up the prices.
I can only assume the same happens with other websites, so before you buy anything, make sure you go back and clear cookies before you get your final price.
Many thanks
A”

Comments please.

[Potakas]

True story, I read something similar (about LH) last year in a newspaper.

Also it is usually cheaper to book you ticket late at night as during the working hours the users are Business men which will buy the tickets as they don’t care so much about the prices.

[NTarrant]

Apparently EasyJet and Ryanair are doing this as well. If you don’t book there and then when you come back the price is higher.

[MartynSinclair]

Does this mean that perhaps it is better to research on one computer, buy on another??

[NTarrant]

I would say yes to the LCC and holiday airlines such as Thomson and Monarch. I can’t say that I have had too much of this with BA, either as logged in on my exec account or just a quick check on another computer.

[Deleted User]

http://www.businesstraveller.com/discussion/topic/Finnair-Unfair

In September of last year, I had a problem with Finnair as described in the above post. To be fare to the airline, they refunded me the ‘overpayment’. Having read this column, could the problem I initally encountered, casuing different pricing, be due to cookies?

Is this similar to the old style advertising in cine,as, where a product was flashed up on the screen in a sublimanal manner.

[LuganoPirate]

My daughter flew to AMS from MXP Saturday on a one way ticket. She first checked Easjet – € 120. Then Swiss which cost more so back to Easy, now €138. Then we checked KLM, also more so back to Easyjet, now €150. Now panicking she asked me to book it but I had timed out, so asked mrs. LP to do it from her computer.

She then had € 115 as a fare which was booked.

Now I understand why, thanks, and I shall clear the cache in future!

[Author]

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