Realized I was paying full price for flights every time... for 6 years

I was at the gate in Chicago last month waiting for a flight to Denver and this guy next to me starts talking about how he got his ticket for $68. My ticket was $210 for the exact same flight. I asked how he did it and he said he booked it on a Tuesday at 2pm using an incognito browser. I never even thought about clearing my cookies or checking on a specific day. I always just searched whenever I felt like it and clicked buy. Turns out airlines track your searches and bump prices if you check the same route a few times. Has anyone else been paying the "lazy tax" on flights without realizing it?

2 comments

2 Comments

riley5172d ago

@blaker75 is spot on, I had the same thing happen flying out of Dallas last year and felt like an idiot.

blaker752d ago

Man, I learned this the hard way flying out of Atlanta to New York four years ago. I checked the same route like ten times over two weeks and the price jumped from $120 to nearly $300. What finally worked for me was using a VPN set to Canada and searching in a private window on a Monday night. I snagged a round trip for $190 total, which was way less than what I was seeing on my own browser. Now I always clear my history and compare prices on Google Flights before I commit, it feels like a cheat code but airlines are just playing games with us.