Matthew Hall, Managing Director at the airport transfer experts hoppa, shares whether booking your flights on private browsing mode can really save you money
- With 700,000 Google searches for “cheap flights” last month, it’s clear that Brits are keen to bag a bargain for their next getaway.
- The experts at hoppa reveal whether the age-old myth of booking on incognito mode is worth the time.
One myth is that booking your flights on incognito mode will give you access to cheaper flights because this doesn’t track your history and supposedly leaves the algorithm unaffected that we typically see with flight comparison sites.
The airport transfer experts at hoppa undertook research on three popular flight routes over a two-week period, using three flight comparison websites and the official airline booking site, on both normal and incognito mode, to determine whether or not incognito mode can truly save you money.
The flight routes analysed were:
- Ryanair – London Stansted to Barcelona (19th July @ 07:35)
- EasyJet – Manchester to Amsterdam (24th July @ 14:30)
- Jet2 – Leeds Bradford to Faro (21st July @ 16:00)
Is incognito mode really cheaper?
Overall, the research found that using incognito mode on different flight comparison websites had different outcomes, and there were no distinctive patterns found, with the following example from the Jet2 flight:
Whether booking through the official airline website and on Kayak, there was no difference across any of the 14 days between standard web browsing and incognito mode.
Using Skyscanner, 12 of the 14 days researched were found to have no difference between prices, however on the remaining two days, the price was actually £2 more per flight on incognito mode than regular web browsing.
Google Flights showed the biggest fluctuation between flight prices across standard and incognito, with just eight of the 14 days matching in price. Two days were lower in incognito by £6.02 and £3.98, whilst the remaining two days were higher on incognito by £5.90 and £1.70.
Prices fluctuate daily
Regardless of whether booking flights on incognito mode can save you money or not, one thing that is for certain is that prices rarely stay the same for longer than a day or two, which is down to several factors, such as availability and demand of the flight route and pricing structure of the airline.
For example, the Jet2 route tended to fall as the week went on – starting on the Monday at £276.30 and falling to £254.70 by the Sunday on the official booking site on a standard web browser. Similarly, on Google Flights this started at £270.40 and fell to £247 by Sunday.
This then rose again the day after, on Monday, to £265.50 on the Jet2 booking site, with the cheapest option on Google Flights standing at £257.50.
In comparison, the Ryanair flight changed price on the official booking site 11 times in two weeks, including six price rises with a peak of £164.19 and five falls with the lowest point at £85.58.
What is the cheapest way to book?
Unfortunately, there is no set pattern or method for every instance to get the cheapest flights every time, as you may find yourself booking with a different airline or taking a different flight route.
On the Jet2 flight, booking directly with the airline provider was found to be the most expensive way to book a flight every day.
Comparison site Kayak was shown to be the cheapest option to book on nine of the 14 days, presenting the most affordable option to consumers for this flight, placing at a peak second highest on just two days.
In contrast, on the Ryanair flight, booking directly with the airline was the cheapest option on 13 out of the 14 days, whilst Kayak proved to be the most expensive site every day analysed (on six of the 14 days it was joint most expensive).
On the easyJet flight, there were nine days in total where all four price comparison sites gave the same lowest price, with Google Flights undercutting the competition by just £1 on four of those days.
Matthew Hall, Managing Director at hoppa believes that consumers should shop around in order to find the best deal, rather than relying solely on the unpredictability of fluctuating prices:
“Although our research found there were a couple of instances where incognito mode proved successful for cheaper pricing than regular web browsing, we would urge holidaymakers to take time to conduct their own research, carefully checking different comparison websites to gauge the best deals.
“Generally speaking, the best way to reduce the costs of your flight is to prepare, research and consider all possible routes of travel when heading abroad.
“Checking alternatives for both your arrival and departure airports and searching through multiple providers will give you a much better chance of securing a cheaper flight, freeing up your holiday spends for when you arrive at your destination.”
Photo by Omar Prestwich on Unsplash
