FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Booking & Using a site to block your location
Old Aug 22, 2019 | 1:10 am
  #37  
Anonba
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Originally Posted by dddc
Interesting thread and replies on Paul4040's video. Kudos to him for owning up to his mistake.

Does anyone use NordVPN? I have it on and usually locate myself outside the UK, often Ireland, to confuse Google and other tracking. When I go onto BA.com it won't connect. If I go onto www.britishaways.com then I get a connection. Does this happen with any other VPN tools? Or to anyone else?

I have had in the past an example of where BA's pricing increased on a journey I was pricing to Australia. I initially looked at LHR-BNE, it gave me one price, then I looked at LHR-SYD and it gave me that price, but when I went back to the LHR-BNE it gave me a higher price. Going onto a different browser and I got the original BNE price, as did clearing cookies. I was able to repeat this several times over the next few days. I should have take screenshots. It was at a time when the BA-QF JV still existed and I think BA even offered me an upgrade from Y to PE (it wa on QF I travelled) for only £175, iirc - which I took of course!

Re getting a better price based on location, this does work depending on the company and if it prices differently for the local market compared to others. I was looking at a certain Scandinavian cruise company's T&Cs and noted that prices were fixed in GBP as at October the previous year. I went to the company's local country site instead of the .co.uk site and found not only a saving due to the price difference (the Pound got stronger in the interim) but they were offering 25% off that weekend. I saved just over £900 for the cruise doing this. I had no issues going onto the local country site and booking, but I've noticed lately some websites, even if you put in a local dot com site, it redirects you back to the market it thinks you are in, so worthwhile to have a VPN in those instances.
The example with cookies or using a different browser isnt deliberate price increase its down to how the site works and uses cookies. As far as BA.com is concerned my opinion is that the idea that price is increased when you search is an urban myth. I think its usually down to people seeing prices change quickly due to availability.
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