- Airlines don’t currently have such granular price control that a handful of searches by one person will result in a customized higher price.
- Airfare purchased well in advance is often cheaper, because airlines know leisure travelers are more price sensitive.
- The best way to get a good deal on airfares is still to do your shopping.
As an airline reporter, I often get asked for travel advice. One of the most enduring myths I hear about in these conversations is that it’s dangerous to repeatedly search for a flight – that somehow, by doing so, you’re going to tell the airline how interested you are in that flight. And the artificial intelligence revenue management gremlins are going to jack up the price just for you.
I’m here to tell you that’s not happening – at least not yet. Airline pricing is complex, and it’s very possible you’re paying something different than your seat neighbor, even if you book the same flight at the same time.
“It’s not hyperbolic to say on an aircraft with 100 seats there could easily, easily be 75 different fares,” William J. McGee, senior fellow for aviation and travel at the American Economic Liberties Project, told me.
However, airlines also don’t have such granular price control that a handful of searches by one person will result in a customized higher price.
“It’s not because you’re making a frequent search; it’s because you are delaying booking and getting closer to the departure date,” Ahmed Abdelghany, associate dean for research at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s David B. O’Maley College of Business told me.
Abdelghany said airlines’ pricing software would have to comb through a tremendous trove of data to recognize that a single user like you was looking for a flight more than once in the shopping process. Typically, he said, pricing decisions at airlines are influenced by much larger data samples.
Abdelghany and McGee both agree, however, that airline pricing is opaque, and that airlines are exercising increasingly granular control over the prices potential passengers see.
How are airline tickets priced?
As with most things in air travel, it’s complicated.
“Several factors determine the price that you might see when you’re searching for an itinerary,” Abdelghany said. “When are you traveling? How early are you booking your ticket? This is an important variable. If you tend to buy at the last minute, the airline may classify the booking request to be coming from a business traveler instead of a leisure traveler. Typically, leisure travelers tend to book far in advance.”
As a result, airfare purchased well in advance is often cheaper because airlines know leisure travelers are more price-sensitive.
Abdelghany said the days of the week you travel on – for example, whether or not you have a Saturday stay in your destination – can also provide a clue as to the purpose of your trip and may influence pricing.
Last week’s Cruising Altitude:Why some think airlines should limit alcohol servings.
Are airfare prices personalized?
Airlines don’t yet show totally different prices to different travelers based on their personal profiles – that much is demonstrated by the fact that pretty much everyone sees the same airfare if they search for the same itinerary at the same time – but McGee and Abdelghany both said the industry seems to be moving in that direction, especially as airlines roll out new technologies that allow for customization of ads and other offers through a passenger’s frequent flyer profile.
“In my view, this is only going to get worse because the technology keeps getting better and the process keeps getting more and more opaque,” McGee said “(Airfare is) going to be customized upward in many ways. In four years, it might be too late. Everybody might have their own price.”
As an aviation adviser at Consumer Reports, McGee oversaw a study of airfares in 2016 that compared prices being quoted on multiple travel platforms on simultaneous searches for the same itinerary. It tested variables including whether or not browser cookies made a difference and found that there was some inconsistent pricing between users even when the exact same searches were happening at the same time.
It’s seemingly the most recent comprehensive study of the effects of search volume on airfares, and even eight years later, McGee said the results stuck with him.
“There’s no question in my mind that fares currently are being tailored in some way for some users,” he said.
Abdelghany pointed out, however, that airlines’ opaque pricing structure likely plays a role in inconsistent and unpredictable pricing.
“You made a search yesterday and now you made a search today, you are getting closer to the departure date,” he said. “Getting closer to the departure date might have some consequences on the price.”
It’s also why airfares often spike during periods of intense demand.
Airlines, Abdelghany said, can see when there’s a true demand spike much better than a few one-off searches.
“It’s not because of the searches, it’s because of the booking that already happened,” Abdelghany told me. “The airlines will treat this as a premium flight because of strong demand.”
How can you get the best deal on airfare?
Proving that it’s really a myth that too many airfare searches bump up the price, the experts told me the best way to get a good deal on airfares is still to do your shopping.
“After 20 years, like I said, the motto is still the same: you have to shop around,” McGee said. “As a good habit, if it’s not too much trouble, it makes sense to clean your browser too.”
But as with everything in this dynamic airline pricing environment, your mileage may vary.
Zach Wichter is a travel reporter based in New York. You can reach him at [email protected].