Is searching for airfares whilst in incognito mode actually helpful?

[verdi]

there is truth to the statement that there is a price difference between using your phone and hopping on a computer. i experienced this a couple of weeks ago - the difference in price wasnt extortionate however there was a difference. i was on the computer before i left home, and in transit checked the phone for the same item and the item was priced higher yet when i went back on to the computer some time later the cost was as per the first search. just be aware of using your mobile phone to cost things

 

[harvyk]

I notice how everyone here is commenting that they did a search on one device and then a little later did a search from another one.
This is not an apples for apples comparison, and if one of my employees came to me and said that's how they did a data test in a live system with consistently changing data I would tell them to go back again and redo the test.

I just did a test on a few different devices and on several different browsers and different IP's, and the answer is that each device (mobile and PC) and each browser returned the exact same set of information.
Why is that you ask? Well in each case the tests was done within a few seconds of each other. I tried this on both QF and VA and got the exact same results.

Later this year I'm taking the family away on a holiday, when I was doing the bookings I did a few dummy bookings to try and find suitable flights. On a couple I got as far as the entering payment screen. Qantas sent across a few emails stating that they had put the tickets on hold for me for a couple of hours in case I wanted to complete the payment. No doubt during those couple of hours it would have had an effect on other peoples search results, and may have made the price temporarily go up.

Whilst I'm not sure if VA do the same thing, it wouldn't surprise me if they did.

A few posts back, one member suggested that they use all sorts of metric to determine how likely you are to buy. I'm going to tentatively call BS on that, I did a look at QF's website and did a dummy booking with developer tools running. I hooked into the DOM events. All the events I saw had to do with displaying and hiding visual popups. The only reason I'm going to say tentative rather than outright is that all source files where minified which does make understanding them more difficult. I would strongly suspect that the airlines have used things like heat maps to work out where on their website peoples eyes might be drawn and how people may interact with a checkbox (yes it's no accident that certain check-boxes required you to un-select them), but this would be something done at design time, not in production. Admittedly I only did this with Qantas, so there may be other sites out there which do this monitoring, of course with the web being increasingly used via touch devices there is no longer the mouse interaction which such technologies would be reliant on. There is also the risk with such timing checks that a less than great connection affects the timings and even other (IT or non-IT) distractions.

As for incognito mode, this is often called "cough" mode, since it prevents a snooping spouse from easily seeing what you where doing on a computer, it prevents entries in the computers history, cookies and offline files being permanently saved, however it does nothing to prevent external websites from tracking whom you are and where you've been. Websites do not typically detect incognito mode running (although there is ways of doing so if you're so inclined)

 

[Happy Dude]

I notice how everyone here is commenting that they did a search on one device and then a little later did a search from another one.
This is not an apples for apples comparison, and if one of my employees came to me and said that's how they did a data test in a live system with consistently changing data I would tell them to go back again and redo the test.

I just did a test on a few different devices and on several different browsers and different IP's, and the answer is that each device (mobile and PC) and each browser returned the exact same set of information.
Why is that you ask? Well in each case the tests was done within a few seconds of each other. I tried this on both QF and VA and got the exact same results.

I would expect the results to be the same too. But that's not what people are really discussing here.

I looked at the same flights one day apart with the same device and got more expensive results for the flight I clicked on the second time round. Whilst the passage of time between searches is a factor that precludes an exact "apples with apples" comparison, I'm somewhat skeptical that in the period between my searches a bunch of people actually booked tickets on the precise route/flight that I looked at. But it's possible, yes. Given that it's an off peak flight (to ROK for heavens sake!) more than two months out, I'll stick with the more plausible scenario that VA tracked my interest in the flight and changed the prices accordingly. The fact that I confirmed lower prices for the flight on a different device after the second search adds to the plausibility.

 

[harvyk]

I would expect the results to be the same too. But that's not what people are really discussing here.

I looked at the same flights one day apart with the same device and got more expensive results for the flight I clicked on the second time round. Whilst the passage of time between searches is a factor that precludes an exact "apples with apples" comparison, I'm somewhat skeptical that in the period between my searches a bunch of people actually booked tickets on the precise route/flight that I looked at. But it's possible, yes. Given that it's an off peak flight (to ROK for heavens sake!) more than two months out, I'll stick with the more plausible scenario that VA tracked my interest in the flight and changed the prices accordingly. The fact that I confirmed lower prices for the flight on a different device after the second search adds to the plausibility.

Did you do any fare bucket checks to see how many seats where available in each fare class when you got different results on different devices? Whilst ROK is probably not the most sort after destination as I mentioned at least on the QF side, a dummy booking was enough to place the seats on hold for me, which could have affected additional searches. Perhaps VA do the same thing. Remembering that airlines know that you will likely be checking out other options (other airlines, or in the case of regional, other travel methods), so by raising the prices due to "continued interest" would only work against them as they could very easily price themselves out compared to other options.

 

[Happy Dude]

Did you do any fare bucket checks to see how many seats where available in each fare class when you got different results on different devices? Whilst ROK is probably not the most sort after destination as I mentioned at least on the QF side, a dummy booking was enough to place the seats on hold for me, which could have affected additional searches. Perhaps VA do the same thing. Remembering that airlines know that you will likely be checking out other options (other airlines, or in the case of regional, other travel methods), so by raising the prices due to "continued interest" would only work against them as they could very easily price themselves out compared to other options.

I don't think you can select fare bucket within a type, or even know it until ticketed. I booked Elevate Q. I think this is the cheapest bucket, and when they're gone, V, N, E are offered at increasing prices. The conditions of those (Elevate) buckets are all the same, aren't they?

When I changed the flights, I was able to do so because Q was still available. But I knew that before I called because the Elevate price had decreased when I checked on a second device.

I don't know about QF, but it seems VA is prepared to raise the price due to "continued interest" at the risk of losing the customer. I've not tried the "pay later" option though. I also usually search on Webjet first.

 

[JohnK]

And rightly so.

Android has the ability to collect granular sensory and social data.
I don't think this forum is an appropriate place to discuss, but if you use an android device - you've fundamentally sold yours, and your friends souls.

Why? Because you'll be constantly spammed with what they think is relevant? I just booked hotel in Chiang Mai. I seriously don't want to book another hotel in Chiang Mai no matter how many emails you send me or how many links to Chiang Mai hotels they show on website.