Same Travel Site, Same Flights or Hotel, Different Prices

Alex Tabarrok points to a discussion of a travel website that appears to price the same hotel differently depending on how results are sorted — offering lower prices for the same room if a person search the site chooses to sort by price (presumably indicating that price is their key criteria for choosing a hotel).

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen results precisely the same, but I do understand that Hotwire has been known to offer slightly different pricing to users of different web browsers (perhaps the theory being that more obscure browsers indicate net-savvy individuals who would be more price sensitive?). And there’s a current Flyertalk discussion on whether the ever-problematic USAirways website prices flights higher for Dividend Miles members that are logged into their accounts (although I suspect that it’s a preferences issue for the member reporting the phenomenon).

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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