Do airlines use cookies to increase prices for flights?
We checked flights from five budget airlines throughout the day to see if the prices changed and by how much. Then we cleared our cookies
BOOKING flights can feel like a total rip off. You look up the price to prepare a budget only to come back to them later and they've gone up £50.
It doesn't matter who you book your flights with it always feels like a mad rush to get them as soon as you see them before they become too expensive.
We thought we'd cracked the code after rumour had it airlines could spy on what we were searching for and hike the price when we searched for them again later.
So to outsmart them we started to cache our internet cookies and search for flights using a different browser - but we haven't really seen a difference.
Plus 86 per cent of Brits don't know when's the best time to bag a bargain on flights, so are they checking up on us? Or are we looking for deals at the wrong time?
To clear up the confusion, we take a look at whether airlines really do hike prices if we search for them more than once - and when's the ideal time to book your flights.
When he switched browsers, the American Airline flights were back to the original price.
Tom Church from explained: "Airlines do use cookies but probably not to raise prices. When you visit Ryanair, easyJet or a flight comparison site such as SkyScanner, all use cookies to store information about you.
So if you try to book a seat last minute, you might end up forking out big money because there are less available.
But then on the flip side, if an airline is struggling to fill a plane they might sell seats cheap to help cover the costs of flying the jet half full.
Flight prices can also change in real time, so it doesn't mean that the lowest fare will always be the lowest available.
"Airlines use other tricks to entice you to pay more," explained Tom. "For example, 'Only 5 Seats Left!' is very common. You freak that you're about to miss out.
"The smelly myth that flight tickets get more expensive because of cookies seems to be more pungent around online travel agents.
"They skim a commission on top of the price of the ticket, so it may be that commission which increase in cost, rather than the flight itself. Again, if in doubt, turn off the cookies!"
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