Clear Browser Cookies When Booking Flights

By Greg Rodgers. Asia Travel Expert

Greg Rodgers is an experienced travel writer, photographer, and world nomad. In 2005, Greg traded his corporate office for a backpack and set out to see the world; he never came back.

When booking flights, does clearing the browser cache make a difference?

Each time you make the same search, you are expressing interest (and increasing demand) for a particular flight. Your searches are saved, both as a cookie on your personal device and as a database entry on the server side.

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The Flight-Comparison Secret

Flight comparison sites are savvy enough to leverage technology -- without your knowing -- to increase their chances of landing your business. Some other tricks involve increasing all the prices after the date for which you searched, just to pressure you into thinking that flight prices are going up if you wait to buy.

It s true. Try searching for the same flight using a different device, and if possible, in a different place.

You ll notice discrepancies in flight prices for sure.

So the secret is out: big booking sites track your previous flight searches to figure out just how much you really want that flight! And they use more than just cookie technology to do so. IP address and geographical location are also taken into account. That s why simply clearing your browser cache before booking a flight may not be good enough.

Let s say, for instance, you check a flight price on Monday. The booking site will save the search as a cookie in your browser.

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If you return later that week and search for the same flight several times, as many people do to see if the price has dropped, they will actually increase the flight price by a marginal amount.

After planning and searching, would you not purchase an international flight if it had only gone up $50? Insiders know to clear their browser cookies or to turn on anonymous browsing before each new flight search. Doing so makes the booking sites think that this is your first look at a flight price. Along with clearing cookies. you can also try using a completely different computer, your phone, or turning on anonymous browsing.

Paranoid? A little. But I ve personally booked scores of flights and have seen this cookie scam play out several times. I first realized the difference in identical fares after searching for prices on two different computers.

Try an experiment: call or email a friend in a bigger city and have them use the same flight comparison site to check the price on the same flight you want. Big booking sites even use geographical data to guess at whether or not you can afford to pay more for a given flight!

Finding the Best Deals on Flights

Pulling the trigger on a $900 flight isn t exactly an easy thing to do.

No matter how many times I do it, and no matter how exciting the destination in Asia  seems, sometimes getting your finger to click that final purchase button takes Herculean strength. But knowing that you received a fair price and didn t fall victim to an old booking trick helps -- a lot.

This is step-by-step how I find the cheapest flights to Asia. Experts say that a majority of passengers on any given flight have all paid different fares. We can at least strive to be near the bottom of that range.