Finally, it looks like people are catching on to what I've known for years: clearing your cookie browsers won't help you get a cheaper ticket.
The Huffington Post just posted this article that the cookie browser hack may not be a really hack after all. That's because flight booking is such a complex beast that there are 1000 more factors into play than just your cookies. Um, duh. I could have told you that a long time ago.
I always like to be honest with people: There is no magic formula for booking cheap tickets. Flight pricing depends on several main things: demand, timing and how many seats are available in a particular fare bucket. I've searched and searched and cleared and cleared and I have never seen a discernible difference in ticket pricing. Seriously, you're better off throwing salt over your left shoulder before you wander over to the computer.
For instance, fare buckets are one of the biggest components on why the same seat on a plane can cost more or less. Fare bucket Z might have a seat priced at $350 while fare bucket Y has a seat priced at $425. The lower fare buckets tend to sell out the fastest. Once there are no longer seats in fare bucket Z, it moves up to the next fare bucket. In this particular example, that that would be fare bucket Y.
Also, if it makes you feel better, I used to build websites and that cookie stuff seems just absolutely silly to me.
