Q – Over a period of about 24 months, we’ve noticed that when we start planning our flights for vacation it seems that the prices have always gone up when we are ready to book, often just a day or two later. It happens too often to be a coincidence. Any recommendations or are we just plain nuts?
A – Actually, you have made a fairly sophisticated and little-known discovery. Airlines have developed software that will insert cookies on your hard drive. It alerts the airline that you are interested in particular flights and the software is programmed to raise the price when you finally go to book. It is our understanding that this is not, currently, illegal, Your behavior online is carefully monitored and stored and it can and will affect the price of items, like an airfare, that have been the subject of a previous search. The solution is to disable your “cookies” just prior to initiating an online fare search.
