Quick Fare Changes While Searching
 

Last night, I was looking for a fare from St. Louis to Traverse City for this upcoming weekend. I found one for $378. I tried a couple of other date options and all of a sudden that fare was gone and now it was $427. No matter what I did, I couldn't get $427. I booked it and then this morning, I went back on and $378 was available--I canceled my first ticket and got the cheaper one.

I believe that somehow American is raising the fares as I look. It seems almost like dynamic pricing upwards as I look and I am wondering how best to work with this? Have others experienced this?

Search fare in incognito mode, do not log in to your account, are some suggestions.

The most likely option is that your initial booking got far enough in that the system reserved your seat but misplaced it by the time you went back to look.

Since you didn't finish booking that initial reservation, it released your seat a few hours later.

Clear your cookies and then recheck - amazing how the fares increase when you seem to be seriously interested!

As others have said -- as soon as you get far enough along in the booking process (e.g., entering passenger details), it puts a hold on the fare. If you then exit out of the booking process, the hold is not immediately released. I believe there may be an associated record locator at that point as well that you can go back to . . . or just wait until the hold is released several hours later.

If the held fare is the last seat available in that fare class, you or the the next person who searches for the same routing will almost certainly pay more.

My experience was that while seaching the fare increased--there was no hold, etc. put on it. I was just exploring dates. I found this so frustrating and deceptive. In fact, I even called and was quoted a fare 20 dollars higher. The whole system seems to be rigged.