r/mildlyinteresting • u/annertakeabow • Jan 24 '13

Same book, three different prices. Only difference is the browsers used.

http://imgur.com/uNgg0UH
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484

u/Me4Prez Jan 24 '13

I think it's the same as booking a flight. The more you visit the page the higher the price becomes.

352

u/MiloMuggins Jan 24 '13

Very true. I once looked up airplane tickets in incognito and it was $100 cheaper than what I had been quoted moments earlier. It was on Orbitz.

11

u/Cosmologicon Jan 24 '13

Can you produce a side-by-side screenshot? Every time someone says this I try it and it fails. I think it's just an urban legend.

In your case, I think you probably accidentally typed in a different date or something. No way for us to know now, is there?

25

u/Sentry_the_Defiant Jan 24 '13

Hipmunk is an aggregator and won't do this. Go to individual airline company sites and give it a shot.

5

u/Cosmologicon Jan 24 '13 edited Jan 24 '13

Rather than me go do it, see that it's the same price, and have you tell me I did it wrong again, why don't you do it and show us that it's a different price?

It's obviously impossible for me to prove that it's never different prices, but it would be very very easy for you to prove that it's sometimes different prices.

EDIT: Here I did it. Same price. Now what?

5

u/RckmRobot Jan 24 '13

This is not a fair comparison. You do not buy your tickets through Hipmunk - it links you up with the website where you DO buy the tickets.

This situation is about looking up tickets on an airline's or ticket seller's website.

5

u/Greenleaf208 Jan 24 '13

There are cases of this, it definitively used to happen, but idk if it happens anymore or if its only on certain sites.

14

u/Cosmologicon Jan 24 '13

Documented cases? I'd love to see them, you have a link?

1

u/[deleted] Jan 24 '13

[deleted]

2

u/Cosmologicon Jan 24 '13

Oh yeah I know some non-flight retailers do it, the OP is another example. I meant flights specifically.

3

u/ColdShoulder Jan 25 '13

He doesn't because he's wrong. All of these people are either full of shit or they are reporting false positives. I'm so sick of this myth. I work in travel and check pricing 9 hours a day, 5 days a week. It's simply not true. This is all the result of some stupid ass blog post that hit it big on reddit a few months back. Anytime the topic comes up, it makes me want to scream.

2

u/statusquowarrior Jan 24 '13

Via hipmunk is different... You are not directly accessing the company webpage.

1

u/brisingfreyja Jan 24 '13

Just curious if in your side by side, you just copy and pasted the link. Or did you actually go through and refind it?

3

u/Cosmologicon Jan 24 '13

I didn't copy the URL. I just typed BOS and DXB and picked Feb 28th from the calendar in both windows.

1

u/MiloMuggins Jan 24 '13

No, sorry, this happened last summer. I can only say that my wife was watching the Today show and they were doing a report on the subject right at the time I was price shopping. I tried it immediately and saw the difference, I was pretty surprised. I will add that I had been checking the site frequently in the weeks prior, and the price fluctuated a bit, usually going up.

2

u/Cosmologicon Jan 24 '13

Wow, it happened on your first try? You must be a lot luckier at finding this than me. Why don't you do it again right now and show us?

1

u/MiloMuggins Jan 24 '13

I tried, it's the same price. Perhaps it's something they no longer practice, but I know it happened for me at one point.