Are online travel agencies quoting higher prices because of your personal information? It’s been difficult to prove that Web “cookies” were being used in that way. Until now, maybe.
Matt Ilardo stumbled across some interesting proof when he tried to book a rental car through Hotwire.
Here’s the rate quote from his work computer: $88 for a three-day rental in New York.
Later that night, Ilardo did the same search at a different computer. It quoted him a rate of $117.
I know what you’re thinking: Rates can change by the minute, and he just missed an opportunity. That’s what he thought, too. But before he booked …
I decided to check the price on the previous computer. I refreshed the search, and found the exact same, and cheaper, first price.
I performed this test several times, and if I logged on after I got the cheaper price, I would find the cheaper price. If I cleared the cookies on the computer and re-did the search, I would get the cheaper price. And every time I was logged on and did the search under my name, I would get the more expensive price.
He called Hotwire to ask why being logged in would result in a higher price, and a representative warned him to never search with more than one browser, as that “could affect availability and price, and that I should always clear the cookies before I search,” he says.
What’s going on? I asked Garrett Whittemore, a Hotwire representative, about Ilardo’s problem. He told me “as a general rule, we definitely do not use Hotwire customer information to generate increased price quotes, whether it’s contained in their cookies or otherwise.”
Hotwire promised to look into this. I’ll update this post when its investigation is done.
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Hey Chris,
This is a really fascinating question, and I hope you get to the bottom of it.
I guess I understand that Hotwire is suggesting that one browser is reserving a price with limited availability, which makes it unavailable to the other. But it seems unlikely. Why would that happen for a price quote? And how does it square with the changes that occurred when the cookies were cleared?
I suppose another possibility is that the rates had changed, but the changes hadn’t propagated across all of Hotwire’s servers, so that browsers pulling pages off different servers got different results. But a condition like that should not be so persistent, unless something was caching locally or on the server.
Even if it’s not deliberate, the discrpancy really shouldn’t exist.
Jeanne
I’m very skeptical that Hotwire or any other major site is doing something intentionally.
First, the public outrage would be damaging to its credibility and brand. Second, I don’t see any motivation for this action. Generally, good customers get better pricing, not worse.
I suspect its a problem with the algorithm. For example, some Starwood customers were complaining that they got better weekend prices when the removed their SET number (Corporate Codes). Turns out the browser was programmed to assume that the SET number would provide the best rate, and didn’t check other rates that the customer might be eligible for. This assumption was valid when only large organizations received SET numbers. But this assumption was wrong once Starwood opened up the SET number program to any business in the US.
Nothing nefarious, just poor assumptions and programming errors.
Although this doesn’t apply in a rental car situation, consider the following scenario regarding flight reservations. You plan a trip with your spouse, but check the airline ticket prices using default values (1 traveler). You get quoted price X. “Great price,” you think, so you redo everything, but change 1 traveler to 2, in anticipation of booking the reservation for both of you. Suddenly, the price is much higher/ticket. Frustrated, you think, “They just changed the price on me.” So you do the search again using default numbers, and the cheaper fare is still there.
What happened? The airline has exactly 1 seat left at the cheaper fare, but the software won’t allow you to book two tickets using the same reservation, one at the cheaper fare, one at the more expensive fare. Naturally, if there is still one cheap ticket left, you’d like to have it. The only way I’ve found to make it work is to just book two reservations. So it’s always a good idea when buying airline tickets on line to run the search first looking for only one ticket. You may be able to save significant money by snagging that last cheap seat.
one would think that they would offer the highest price first and if you did not bite, then lower the price on subsequent trips – but I supposed the logic is that you looked here – then looked elsewhere – then came back because this price was lower so you will pay more – good logic . . . if I am not doing business with you now – then showing me a higher price will not get me to do business with you later –
just a crazy thought. . . .
I experienced higher rates last week on a cruise line’s website after getting a quote on a cruise. I opened up a different browser, went to the same site to book the same cruise and the price was back to the original price I was given.
I’ve experienced the same thing on airline websites. Delete cookies or use a different browser — always!
Cookies are a good target, but the problem may also be geo-location.
Geo-location is the (inexact) science of determining where a computer physically is located based on its IP address.
Hotwire may have determined that one ZIP code is more likely to be affluent or business-oriented, and therefore gets a higher-rate than another ZIP code, which may be lower-income or more likely to be vacation travelers.
A really interesting question, and I hope you figure it out. Geo-targeting is definitely a possible reason for the discrepency — sites are getting more savvy about tracking cookies geographically, which is why geo-targeted ads are becoming more and more prevalent. But to pinpoint by zip-code and not just by city–that’s pretty specific, and would require lots of extra data about median income, etc to be synced up with the system. I think a problem with their algorithm is more likely the guilty culprit, as Carver mentioned. If you figure it out, but sure and post!
I had something like that happen to me a few times, this time for a flight.
What happened was I searched for a flight, then saved a record in my account with an airline or travel agency if I couldn’t book it on the spot. The price went up by the time I get around to it.
After seeing this occurring a few more times, I decided to test it. I searched for the same flight I originally saved a record of, but didn’t save it anew.
The price didn’t go up even after I finally booked it. I deleted the saved but unpaid record.
Unfortunately subsequent testing didn’t show any consistency. But a few things I learned since then is just take note of the trip if I really can’t book it there and then, and not expect its price to remain that way by the time I get to it.
Another thing that happens with me when booking is that I have certain preferences which are automatically loaded as part of my account. For example, my hotel preference is a king, non-smoking room. When logged in, my preferred sites will ignore all other rooms. However, when I am not logged in and my preferrence not loaded, I see all sorts of cheap rates for twin beds, queen beds, smoking rooms. However, since none of these room conform to my requests, they are ignored when I log in, resulting in higher prices being displayed.
Same with car rentals. When I used to use Yahoo to rent cars, my profile included numbers for Hertz, Budget, and Alamo. as a result, those companies rates topped the list, regardless of whether they were the cheapest of not. When I logged out, I would get the list in a different order. Also, like with Starwood, my frequent renter rate would dominate, even if a cheaper rate was available. The reason was that my rate might have perks, or required for requalification of elite status, etc.
Or they may want to discourage price shoppers (people who log onto Hotwire to get a quote, and then hop over to Expedia or Travelocity to compare prices, and then try to book the Hotwire deal when they find Expedia or Travelocity’s prices were higher).
Heh, good luck with that.
I noticed that the price may vary according to country of residence. If you book car rentals online direct from the company website, there is often a check box and they attempt to justify it as some type of insurance matter. But I think it is gero-targeting. It may be reading this from a cookie.
I get really irate with discount airlines in Australia, after selecting a good fare, choosing the flight, and submitting all the passenger and payment details they want, the website tells me the fare is no longer available and I should choose one for $20 more. This has happened more than once even when I really hurry with making the booking. I suspect airlines play with people, using cookies perhaps, to expect people to pay more since theve spent all that time finding the right flight.
why do you keep looking over and over again anyway? i sorta don’t get the whole debate.