Clearing cookies saves money on travel?

[sweeps]

I just read an article in Kiplinger's Personal Finance about saving money on travel. Fairly interesting.

The article is on their web site: http://www.kiplinger.com/personalfin...1/travel3.html

One piece of advice that really caught my attention is to clear your cookies every time you search for travel deals. Apparently some companies ratchet up the prices if they determine you've done previous searches. See the blue box called "Cover your Web Tracks".

[debtfreeme]

have you not noticed that when you enter some travel sights there seems to be deals for exatly where you want to go if you have done online research? They can access your cookies and that tells them what you are interested in. Get rid of the cookies and then you can really search.

[Dingoluv4eva]

that is kinda shady.
I really would like to meet the person who analyzed the data, and came to the conclussion, that giving people who are shopping around a high price, makes the the company more money, than trying to catch some people with a good price who would not had other wise bought.

Must be some smart person.

[Bruce Wayne]

It would be quite easy to test. You simply conduct a number of different searches with cookies enabled, then conduct the same searches with cookies disabled and see the results.

[Dingoluv4eva]

Here is what i got so far..

Using sidestep.com

Recently i was looking to book a flight from Boston to Philly, so i had searching history on that one.

1. Got a price of 136$ on TransAir. (which is similar to what i was getting a few weeks back)

2. Deleted all my cookies, and set the cookies on off. Restarted browser.

Suprisingly, the sidestep.com website still remembered BOS and PHL abbreviations, so i easily was able to pull them up.. (so they still knew stuff about me, prolly through the IP address?)

anyways.. with cookies off. they wouldn't even give any prices, it kept resetting back to main page.

with cookies on.. it gave the same TRANSAIR $136 price.

so it looks like they use not just Cookies, but also your IP address.

[Firefly]

Well that's screwy.

[meaghanchan]

Dingoluv4eva: That's not likely the website that's remembering your cookies and IP address when it fills in "BOS" and "PHL". If you go to the preferences on your browser, most browsers have something called "autofill", which is designed to save people time on forms. The _browser_ remembers your name address, and other things you've entered in the past when given certain prompts. If when it sees "name", you always enter, say, "Jane", it'll remember that; if "BOS" was the last departing airport you searched for, it'll remember that. It's your own internet browser remembering what you've typed, not the website.

Maybe $136 from Boston to Philadelphia is just the best price available?

[meaghanchan]

Incidentally: Sorry to post twice right in a row...

Decided to do a search on flights, using the same website you used, from Boston to Philadelphia, of which I have absolutely no searching history, so, by this logic, I would get the lowest price...
I don't know what dates you were searching for, but I couldn't find anything below $136.

I'm not sure this website necessarily gives the best deals, though... I recently (2 days ago) booked a trip for NYC to Raleigh, NC for Christmas. When I searched on sidestep, it gave me a lowest price of $237. The lowest price I got on Travelocity, which is where I ended up booking it, was $221.

And, about the cookies thing... I don't know... If I were a travel company, and I knew the person who was at the site today, who was going to make me some money, had been shopping around... I'd want to give them a *lower* price, to entice them to go with my company rather than a competitor. But that's just me. The next time I fly, I'll try clearing my cookies, and report my results.

[vince]

It not is the cookies that you should clear it is also the browser history. That is how they figured out it was you after you cleared your cookies. It was still stored in your browser.

Some travel sites are owned by the same people and they share your info with each other. hotwire is owned by expedia or travelocity. Some combo of sorts actually thinking about it its Orbitz that owns cheap tickets and Hotwire. I have an affiliate travel site myself

[sweeps]

Under normal circumstances, web sites cannot access your browser history. They should only be able to recognize you if they access a cookie, you identify yourself by logging in, or you use an old URL which has your ID embedded in it.

[jmjj215]

We dumped the cookies and repeated our search for tickets to ATL for Christmas. Same price - boy were we disappointed.

[vince]

Since you have such a long time until Christmas why dont you try priceline. You can name your own price. I have an affiliate site that gets all the fares from a website called easyclicktravel.com you may want to try there. I dont want to spam the board with my own travel site.

[djaco]

I travel quite regularly on business, and have tried the clearing cookies trick but it really doesn't work. Here's what I do to get the best price on travel:

Search flights at a big travel website like orbitz.com or travelocity.com, and find the airline that offers the best price for your trip.

Then go directly to the airline's website and find the same flights. You will get a better price most of the time, and you don't have to pay the service fee that the travel sites charge. This works well for hotels and rental cars too!

Hope it helps!!!

[vince]

Debbie what do you use for hotel rooms when you travel because I might be able to save you money.

[TBH]

Originally Posted by vince

I dont want to spam the board with my own travel site.

Oh, go on, Vince. Spam us. We want to know what your site is. But it's nice of you to be so circumspect.

[jmjj215]

Vince, you seem the expert: I heard that Wednesday nights are especially good for getting cheap deals. Myth?

[djaco]

Hi Vince,

When traveling on business I usually stay at the same places, and have negotiated a special corporate rate with the hotel manager that is much less than the published corp rate. If I go to a new place for a 1 time visit however, I normally check Orbitz, find the hotel I want and then book through the hotel website (Marriot.com for instance). I'd love to hear how you could save me money. Do tell......

[vince]

Actually it is tuesday night at midnight when the airlines start to panic and they release seats that were not available to the public beforehand.

The hotel rates are really low especially when you book thru EasyClickTravel. If you have a deal worked out with the hotel already I doubt that could be beat.

[djaco]

Thanks for the info - I'll try your site for hotels next time I need one. I didn't know about the best time to buy an airline ticket - good information!