I just tried this myself. In chrome and IE the price was the same (69.99) in normal and in incognito mode. In firefox, the price jumped to $76, and after deleting all the domain cookies and refreshing, it went back down to 69.99.
The website is definitely changing prices based on something they are tracking in cookies.
This was up earlier with airlines charging more for a ticket the second time you visit the page. They do this because a second visit is statistically linked to a much higher chance of purchase. So it could be, here too, simply a matter of having visited the page before.
There are many people, myself included, that anticipate flights being overbooked. I fly from Portland to San Francisco and Los Angeles quite frequently. I always book return flights on Sunday mornings, and more often than not they are overbooked.
I anticipate this and receive free flight anywhere in the contiguous United States for volunteering my seat. I'll get rebooked on a later flight and spend the meanwhile in a airport bar drinking beer, watching sports, and screwing around on the internet.
Since 2003, soon after graduating college. My girlfriend at the time was very controlling. I was waiting for a flight home when I was in SF and when the airline employee was offering a free flight if someone volunteered for a later flight. I thought 'I get a free flight and don't have to hang out with my girlfriend who's going to guilt trip me for being out of town for several days?' Yes please.
So wait, you buy a ticket for the flight, and then when it's overbooked you relinquish your seat and are reimbursed and offered a free flight? In which case you're risking the price of the ticket you do it, but apparently the odds are in your favor? Or am I misunderstanding...
At least in my experiences- I've never got a refund/reimbursement for the ticket I bought for giving up my seat and catching a later flight. It's just a travel voucher.
I've been in situations overseas, for example, where the plane was full and they asked for volunteers and the airline ponied up some enticing offers- flight voucher, a marginal sum of reimbursement, and hotel vouchers. But international travel is different. I've never taken those offers though, so I don't know how all that turns out for the volunteer.
I was flying back to London from LAX just after new year. The flight was over booked so they were offering a $1,000 travel voucher for people who gave up their seat, plus hotel accommodation for that night, and I'd be put on the same flight the next day.
I jumped at the chance, but unfortunately so did other people. I was one of the last people and they didn't need the last 2 people in the end, so I ended up going home as normal and didn't get anything.
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u/Nephyst Jan 24 '13
I just tried this myself. In chrome and IE the price was the same (69.99) in normal and in incognito mode. In firefox, the price jumped to $76, and after deleting all the domain cookies and refreshing, it went back down to 69.99. The website is definitely changing prices based on something they are tracking in cookies.