That being said how you arrive to our site says a lot about what you will see. We have noticed that Skyscanner has taken their AI purchase predictor to a new level (along with some not so sophisticated, but effective, display tactics). They will, based on your email, social media, search history display what their AI predicts you will buy. So your display from them is provided with what has been ‘filtered’ to fit your person paradigm according to their logic. The baby has gone out with the bath water. You get what they determined is the best for you…. to buy from/through them.
This means you may not get all the flights, the cheapest, most convenient flights, or from competing OTA’s (online travel agents) that may disrupt the predicted outcome.
Say you find a flight on your favourite meta engine (Like Chinese owned Skycanner (SS) for example) and shop for a flight. First up... the results are returned as the ‘best’ option… not cheapest. Best for who? So first the best cheap travel hacks… always reset the search order after flights are displayed on a meta to be ‘Cheapest’ first. This will force the system to reorder and provide flights not previously displayed. If the meta has 240 results and it says it is displaying 160, tick the box to “Display All”, again this will force the system to reorder and provide flights not previously displayed.
So your search has led you to an OTA with the flights you want at a price you are comfortable with, but maybe higher priced than expected. Lets say the OTA is Future.Travel as they appeared in the search result options. SS will redirect you to the site, to the exact choice they guided you to during your search. You may find that by repeating the same search on the OTA you chose (in this case Future.Travel) you could find dozens of flights cheaper than what you had selected on SS. This has to do with direct flight linking that SS uses with OTA’s and the predictive nature of how people shop and buy. Second best cheap travel hack… when you arrive on the website of the OTA after being redirected by a meta site like SS, always recreate the search to see what is on offer and if you are really getting the best on offer from the OTA. You may find a much cheaper option is offered on the same or other airlines.
So to answer the question… Does going incognito online really help find cheaper airline tickets?… absolutely if you are dealing with large meta consolidators who redirect you to an OTA website or Airline website. Probably not necessary if you go direct to the OTA.
