Jetstar Inflated Prices for Me Only after Refusing a Phone Booking

I've been looking at a particular Melbourne > Bangkok flight for a while now and it's stayed at the same price of $245 for the past week and up until I called Jetstar to make a general enquiry. The staff over the phone tried to end the call asking if I wanted to book the flight with him to reserve the price as it may increase later on - I refused.

I go back on the site and when I try to check out with the $245 price, it says it's "sold out". I refresh and now the only price is for $320, and 80% of the flight is not booked based off what I see in the seat selection. To note - I have Club Jetstar and I am logged in.

I ask my partner and I try to go through it all logged out and the $245 flight can be searched for and booked, not "sold out". But as soon as I "log in" the price of the flight is magically $320 again.

Has anyone heard of this or experienced targeted price inflating? I know prices can be inflated if you use a link referred from other sites (like a cash rebate site) but selective targetting after a phone conversation seems much and really deceptive?

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Comments

  • +3

    Yep, this does happen for some airlines and even hotel bookings. They track your cookies and can inflate prices of things you've been looking at, highly doubt linked to phone call though. Could also be complete coincidence and it actually is sold out if you tried to buy it or a glitch somewhere.

    PM me details if you want me to give it a go and verify if it's available.

    • +1

      Nah, 100% targeted for me. Price only shows as $320 when I am logged in only. This only started happening after my phone call with them, almost immediately. I've been searching this flight on my acc for the past week daily with no changes.

      I'll PM you.

      • +2

        So I get the opposite of you. $309 when not signed in. $249 when signed in to account with 8 left at that price. It's probably down to their algorithms to maximise revenue.

        • Create a new login and try it from a different location (incase IP is tracked too)…would that work?

  • I’ve noticed it with Scoot.
    Ie. higher prices when logged in.

  • You can't say 80% of the flight is not booked as What you see is what seats other customers have reserved (ie. paid for). The rest will be allocated on the day of the flight.

  • +1

    What about you book a flight and just before the Payment page, log in and see if the amount in the shopping cart changes.

    • I always search from a new private window and preferably with another country's IP address (VPN), then repeat concurrently with a local search while logged in, then choose the best deal.

  • How is this level of price manipulation still acceptable in this day and age?

  • +1

    It's called dynamic pricing - everyone gets their own price so that you can be ripped off as much as possible.

    You know how all the idiots have been letting businesses collect their data for the last two decades? Well that's how they know how much to rip you off by in the dynamic pricing.

    Some of the idiots even accept money for their data, eg spending incentive programs, thinking that they're coming out on top LMAO.

  • +1

    This is quite common and I have experienced it too. If you keep looking at a flight the price will go up. Use a different computer or private session / clear cookies and price is back down. All part of their marketing / aka dodgy business practices

  • Does incognito mode (private browsing in firefox/chrome) still work as the workaround to this? Blocks the cookies or some internet magic, so it doesnt think youve already looked at the price.

    As Diji1 says above, Dynamic pricing recent article

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