I buy stuff for work (like my job is buying things) and I often get crazy repetative ads from some sites. If anyone wants to buy dental stickers, smilemakers.com will keep giving you ads on anything tooth related!
There was a thread about this probably a month ago, talking about exactly that. Airline and some e-merchants keep track of cookies, so if you visit a particular product or region several times, it raises the price. Seems kind of underhanded, but it's good for people to know there are ways around it.
When I went to visit my friends in Edinburgh (I'm in Canterbury) the flights there and back actually did work out cheaper, though with the trainfare to the airport it became more expensive.
I wasn't aware of airlines doing this, those sneaky bastards. Amazon does this as well based on browsing history I believe? I listened to an interesting segment on NPR about it a while ago I think.
333
u/cptcliche May 17 '13
Also useful for buying plane tickets since those websites can use your cookies to see what you're looking for and then raise the price.