Well, this is cute.
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Well, this is cute. I looked up an #AirCanada flight in Firefox and then pasted the URL into a Chromium window where I was logged into my Aeroplan Super-Elite account. Air Canada added $300 to the flight price when I tried to load it from a logged-in browser. Hell of a customer loyalty perk!
I bought the ticket in my non-logged-in window, then added my FF number to it.
@pluralistic Did you try this with two private tabs in Firefox? Does the browser matter?
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@angela_underscore @pluralistic I think the phrase you were looking for is "that rackets up the prices".
It is a “racket”, I suppose. A clever twist on the ratchet phrasing that I used.
Happy to have provided the set-up.
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Well, this is cute. I looked up an #AirCanada flight in Firefox and then pasted the URL into a Chromium window where I was logged into my Aeroplan Super-Elite account. Air Canada added $300 to the flight price when I tried to load it from a logged-in browser. Hell of a customer loyalty perk!
I bought the ticket in my non-logged-in window, then added my FF number to it.
@pluralistic "Dynamic Pricing" strikes again
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Well, this is cute. I looked up an #AirCanada flight in Firefox and then pasted the URL into a Chromium window where I was logged into my Aeroplan Super-Elite account. Air Canada added $300 to the flight price when I tried to load it from a logged-in browser. Hell of a customer loyalty perk!
I bought the ticket in my non-logged-in window, then added my FF number to it.
So, does this mean flights are cheaper on a Firefox browser or cheaper when you're not logged in?
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So, does this mean flights are cheaper on a Firefox browser or cheaper when you're not logged in?
@jikomayo Trick question! Air Canada's website is so broken I can't login on Firefox!
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Well, this is cute. I looked up an #AirCanada flight in Firefox and then pasted the URL into a Chromium window where I was logged into my Aeroplan Super-Elite account. Air Canada added $300 to the flight price when I tried to load it from a logged-in browser. Hell of a customer loyalty perk!
I bought the ticket in my non-logged-in window, then added my FF number to it.
@pluralistic Airline Pricing is as transparent as Pre-Scotty Aluminum
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Yet another level of #enshittification :
Provide customer loyalty benefits to help secure your very best customers, then turn the tables and screw them for that very same loyalty.
@energisch_ @Ehay2k @pluralistic that has been for decades. Reward cost more and miles collections is harder. And raise status tiers.
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@pluralistic Yes, we've seen this. Also, the price sometimes goes up if, logged in, you leave and come back later!
That one can be explained away to some extent by being closer to the estimated date, and therefore something something cost of opportunity.
Sorry, I said 'explained' when I meant 'excused'. These companies will feed everyone a line of bullshit when pushed on their practices. It might even be human bullshit and not machine-generated artificial bullshit, with 30% microplastics.
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Well, this is cute. I looked up an #AirCanada flight in Firefox and then pasted the URL into a Chromium window where I was logged into my Aeroplan Super-Elite account. Air Canada added $300 to the flight price when I tried to load it from a logged-in browser. Hell of a customer loyalty perk!
I bought the ticket in my non-logged-in window, then added my FF number to it.
Always book flight tickets from a trailer park
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@energisch_ I pasted the URL with its identifiers from Firefox to Chromium, so as far as the Chromium window (where I was logged into my Air Canada account) knew, I was being referred there by Google Flights, same as the Firefox window (where I wasn't logged in). Firefox was about 25% cheaper.
@pluralistic @energisch_ this can easily be explained: the URL doesn't have the Google Flights referral. That might be stored in a cookie or in their database and you have a session ID. Countercheck with a private browser windows in Firefox.
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Well, this is cute. I looked up an #AirCanada flight in Firefox and then pasted the URL into a Chromium window where I was logged into my Aeroplan Super-Elite account. Air Canada added $300 to the flight price when I tried to load it from a logged-in browser. Hell of a customer loyalty perk!
I bought the ticket in my non-logged-in window, then added my FF number to it.
COINCIDENTALLY this happened to me the last time i went to Paris. 2009 to be precise. but the site i was logged in was Expedia.com and the airline i ended up buying directly from? #AirCanada.
i have never traveled as much as you do; so since then i don’t pay attention to frequency programs and just book “anonymously”.
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@energisch_ @Ehay2k @pluralistic that has been for decades. Reward cost more and miles collections is harder. And raise status tiers.
@hub Loyalty is not treasured any longer, true. Our internet provider offers far better conditions for new customers than for old one. We decided to quit our contract.
A day later we got the same deal as a new customer
@Ehay2k @pluralistic -
@pluralistic @energisch_ this can easily be explained: the URL doesn't have the Google Flights referral. That might be stored in a cookie or in their database and you have a session ID. Countercheck with a private browser windows in Firefox.
@chx @energisch_ I confess that I'm baffled by the ardor to find an alternative explanation. The major airlines routinely boast of their surveillance pricing plans and programs. The people who develop, consult on and manage loyalty programs brag that frequent customers don't notice when prices go up. AC has a monopoly on the route.
The same URL in two browsers, one logged in, and one not, produces a 25% premium price for the logged in session.
Occam's razor applies.
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@chx @energisch_ I confess that I'm baffled by the ardor to find an alternative explanation. The major airlines routinely boast of their surveillance pricing plans and programs. The people who develop, consult on and manage loyalty programs brag that frequent customers don't notice when prices go up. AC has a monopoly on the route.
The same URL in two browsers, one logged in, and one not, produces a 25% premium price for the logged in session.
Occam's razor applies.
@chx @energisch_ Even if you stipulate that (for some incoherent reason) Air Canada offers discounts to Google Flights users, that is *still price discrimination against its frequent fliers.*
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Well, this is cute. I looked up an #AirCanada flight in Firefox and then pasted the URL into a Chromium window where I was logged into my Aeroplan Super-Elite account. Air Canada added $300 to the flight price when I tried to load it from a logged-in browser. Hell of a customer loyalty perk!
I bought the ticket in my non-logged-in window, then added my FF number to it.
"In capitalism, loyalty never goes unpunished."
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@chx @energisch_ Even if you stipulate that (for some incoherent reason) Air Canada offers discounts to Google Flights users, that is *still price discrimination against its frequent fliers.*
@pluralistic @energisch_ alas, this is a case of incompetence not malice. They offer a special fare for certain OTAs and the department arranging that fare didn't coordinate with the very very disjoint department who handles frequent fliers. Not sure whether this makes sense. I am merely saying Air Canada is incompetent and not malicious. But they are *very* incompetent there's no doubt.
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A coworker in sales told me that he always uses private mode to shop for flights/travel. Something to do with cookies talking to each other that ratchets up the prices.
@angela_underscore @pluralistic I've read that if you leave and come back a few times that the price will go up. Private/anonymous would likely help with that along with clearing cache and cookies.
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Well, this is cute. I looked up an #AirCanada flight in Firefox and then pasted the URL into a Chromium window where I was logged into my Aeroplan Super-Elite account. Air Canada added $300 to the flight price when I tried to load it from a logged-in browser. Hell of a customer loyalty perk!
I bought the ticket in my non-logged-in window, then added my FF number to it.
Airlines have really made an art of taking this magical human achievement of flying through the air and bogging it down with as much shit as they can shovel until it's viewed as an extremely unpleasant chore.
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@pluralistic @energisch_ alas, this is a case of incompetence not malice. They offer a special fare for certain OTAs and the department arranging that fare didn't coordinate with the very very disjoint department who handles frequent fliers. Not sure whether this makes sense. I am merely saying Air Canada is incompetent and not malicious. But they are *very* incompetent there's no doubt.
@chx @energisch_ You have enormous confidence that this airline, a monopolist, on a route where it has a monopoly, which has already boasted of its algorithmic pricing and its ability to do first-order price discrimination, an industry-wide trend boasted of by the vendors hired to do this, is not doing this, entirely on the basis of some a priori assumptions for which you have offered zero evidence.
Do you work in AC ops?
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That one can be explained away to some extent by being closer to the estimated date, and therefore something something cost of opportunity.
Sorry, I said 'explained' when I meant 'excused'. These companies will feed everyone a line of bullshit when pushed on their practices. It might even be human bullshit and not machine-generated artificial bullshit, with 30% microplastics.
@theogrin @pluralistic it happens in a matter of a day or two!
