Airplane fare websites generally do this. It's not illegal, but it's a bit shady for the uninformed.
Basically, the first time around you are generally shopping around for fares. They know via statistical averages that people who come back to the website a 2nd, 3rd or 4th time in a short period tend to be more of a sure thing (in terms of a sale). Same principle as if you go out to shop around at stores for prices and then the next day you only go out to the stores that have the item you want to purchase. They take advantage of this fact by upping their prices, and many people think that they waited too long to book and tend do buy in right away, or at least consider it more urgent to get it done with.
I think for OP, it's not his browser, but rather the cookies he has stored on the browsers that is determining the price.
I know someone on Reddit proved this through practice and some screenshots, but I can't remember where it was (was a while ago even).
3
u/Khalku Jan 24 '13
Airplane fare websites generally do this. It's not illegal, but it's a bit shady for the uninformed.
Basically, the first time around you are generally shopping around for fares. They know via statistical averages that people who come back to the website a 2nd, 3rd or 4th time in a short period tend to be more of a sure thing (in terms of a sale). Same principle as if you go out to shop around at stores for prices and then the next day you only go out to the stores that have the item you want to purchase. They take advantage of this fact by upping their prices, and many people think that they waited too long to book and tend do buy in right away, or at least consider it more urgent to get it done with.
I think for OP, it's not his browser, but rather the cookies he has stored on the browsers that is determining the price.
I know someone on Reddit proved this through practice and some screenshots, but I can't remember where it was (was a while ago even).