Booking & Using a site to block your location
Aug 20, 2019, 11:36 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Apr 2015
Posts: 1,339
Booking & Using a site to block your location
I recently saw a review from a well known travel blogger and on it he recommended using a site such as surfshark to change the actual country he was booking from (in his example UK -Brazil). As a result, the price of a LHR-JFK return went down by £150.
Is this his legal or something against BA’s T&Cs? What about booking a BA holiday this way?
Is this his legal or something against BA’s T&Cs? What about booking a BA holiday this way?
Aug 21, 2019, 12:08 am
#2
Moderator, Iberia Airlines, Airport Lounges, and Ambassador, British Airways Executive Club
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If it's BA.com then changing location this way is silly given you can change the base country via the flag on the top right of BA's screen.. It doesn't change fares, but the blogger probably hasn't realised his cookies will remember his previous setting for lowest versus flexible fares.
Aug 21, 2019, 12:27 am
#3
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Life is full of urban legends...
Aug 21, 2019, 1:15 am
#4
Join Date: Jul 2018
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Posts: 152
Without testing I don't know if BA do this, but lots of companies do - dynamic pricing isn't just based on the time of day that you are looking for something (and there is a national retailer trialling dynamic pricing in one of their "local" stores, changing the price of products on the shelf at different points of the day), but nowadays a whole lot more. Companies are effectively profiling your session - where you're connecting from, what machine you're using (e.g. Tablet, Apple, Windows, Android etc), the profile of your location (ABC matching), what your browsing history has been, what cookies you have (so if you're being tracked by ad companies, there's a chance some / all of that profile data can be accessed by the retailer to build their own profile). Using all of this data, they will then determine how to treat you as a potential customer - that might mean throwing you specific offers to cross-sell / up-sell, it might mean tweaking their prices upwards - either because they believe you can afford it or you might have a propensity to consider a higher price means a better product. This is definitely happening in the holiday industry (I have a friend who works in technology for a major holiday company), but are BA using it? Who knows - and if they were, would they be getting it right? Although there is definitely revenue upside if they get this right, if not the rest of their IT, so well worth the investment.
Edited to add: if you want to try on BA.com or anywhere else, us a VPN and Incognito mode.
Edited to add: if you want to try on BA.com or anywhere else, us a VPN and Incognito mode.
Aug 21, 2019, 1:56 am
#5
Join Date: Sep 2012
Posts: 2,573
This won't work on BA - the point of sale is always set as the departure country. However using a travel agent website in another POS may yield results. For example in my experience I often found UK-US flights on expedia.com available in lower fare buckets than booking in the UK
Aug 21, 2019, 2:11 am
#6
Join Date: May 2005
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If it's BA.com then changing location this way is silly given you can change the base country via the flag on the top right of BA's screen.. It doesn't change fares, but the blogger probably hasn't realised his cookies will remember his previous setting for lowest versus flexible fares.
Aug 21, 2019, 2:15 am
#7
Original Poster
Join Date: Apr 2015
Posts: 1,339
This won't work on BA - the point of sale is always set as the departure country. However using a travel agent website in another POS may yield results. For example in my experience I often found UK-US flights on expedia.com available in lower fare buckets than booking in the UK
Its mentioned in the below video
Aug 21, 2019, 2:57 am
#9
Join Date: Dec 2007
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This is useful if, like me, you want to e.g. pay in GBP for a flight originating elsewhere. But it can sometimes result, for reasons discussed above, in very different pricing, both good and bad.
tb
Aug 21, 2019, 3:01 am
#10
Join Date: Mar 2017
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The POS is determined by the cell centre...so calling the UK number, will get you a UK POS.
This is useful if, like me, you want to e.g. pay in GBP for a flight originating elsewhere. But it can sometimes result, for reasons discussed above, in very different pricing, both good and bad.
tb
This is useful if, like me, you want to e.g. pay in GBP for a flight originating elsewhere. But it can sometimes result, for reasons discussed above, in very different pricing, both good and bad.
tb
Aug 21, 2019, 3:14 am
#11
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: PEK and BOS
Programs: BA - Blue
Posts: 4,530
tb
Aug 21, 2019, 3:37 am
#12
Moderator, Iberia Airlines, Airport Lounges, and Ambassador, British Airways Executive Club
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OK having watched that rubbish, that is several minutes of my life I won't get back.
This is one reason why I am on FlyerTalk I get no commission, no deals, no credit card referrals and no SurfShark referrals. It's baloney which is borne either out of ignorance or possibly he has a vested interest in spouting this rubbish. We are very lucky that there are many other like minded souls in this forum and elsewhere in FT, I won't name them but you will know who they are. They too put out good and factual content without vested interests in stake, or indeed copying other people's mistakes.
Unlike what he clearly stated, with a note of authority in his voice, BA's public fares are exactly that. In the good old days you could go to your public library and see them in big fat directories made by OAG and others. These days you can use ITA Matrix, Expertflyer and many other tools to see the fares for yourself. There are a few private fares - there used to be more - there are corporate fares and there are industry fares. Private fares are all but public anyway, you just to delve into it a bit more.
On top of that is the inadequacy of the current web front end used by BA.com, which shows one leg at a time and then adds it. The £100 difference was on one leg, by changing the date criteria you can get that anytime you want, what you then do is add the return leg and end up with the return fare. You will note there wasn't forensic detail on this. But I wager than had he used either the old front end OR continued to compare true flights on specific fares, there would be no difference.
To be an aviation blogger you need to blog, you don't need to know anything about aviation. To get anywhere on Flyertalk you need specifics, you need details, they can be challenged by others who are also knowledgeable. But you don't need a VPN provider to slip a few bob into your back pocket. And you certainly don't need to change your IP address. Speaking only for myself, I'm keenly aware of what are the "right" fares in my area since the sums of money in my case are off the scale enormous. I'm also doing these flights regularly so I can see the patterns and trends. I book my travel in multiple locations. I also have access to another industry GDS so I can compare on the list fares, and I've got ExpertFlyer too as a backup. What I say here others can (and must) challenge. This is how it should be. I know the way of world is going, fake analysis over fact and peer reviewed research, but sometimes we need to be very clear when it is happening.
This is one reason why I am on FlyerTalk I get no commission, no deals, no credit card referrals and no SurfShark referrals. It's baloney which is borne either out of ignorance or possibly he has a vested interest in spouting this rubbish. We are very lucky that there are many other like minded souls in this forum and elsewhere in FT, I won't name them but you will know who they are. They too put out good and factual content without vested interests in stake, or indeed copying other people's mistakes.
Unlike what he clearly stated, with a note of authority in his voice, BA's public fares are exactly that. In the good old days you could go to your public library and see them in big fat directories made by OAG and others. These days you can use ITA Matrix, Expertflyer and many other tools to see the fares for yourself. There are a few private fares - there used to be more - there are corporate fares and there are industry fares. Private fares are all but public anyway, you just to delve into it a bit more.
On top of that is the inadequacy of the current web front end used by BA.com, which shows one leg at a time and then adds it. The £100 difference was on one leg, by changing the date criteria you can get that anytime you want, what you then do is add the return leg and end up with the return fare. You will note there wasn't forensic detail on this. But I wager than had he used either the old front end OR continued to compare true flights on specific fares, there would be no difference.
To be an aviation blogger you need to blog, you don't need to know anything about aviation. To get anywhere on Flyertalk you need specifics, you need details, they can be challenged by others who are also knowledgeable. But you don't need a VPN provider to slip a few bob into your back pocket. And you certainly don't need to change your IP address. Speaking only for myself, I'm keenly aware of what are the "right" fares in my area since the sums of money in my case are off the scale enormous. I'm also doing these flights regularly so I can see the patterns and trends. I book my travel in multiple locations. I also have access to another industry GDS so I can compare on the list fares, and I've got ExpertFlyer too as a backup. What I say here others can (and must) challenge. This is how it should be. I know the way of world is going, fake analysis over fact and peer reviewed research, but sometimes we need to be very clear when it is happening.
Aug 21, 2019, 4:00 am
#13
Join Date: Jun 2016
Location: Surrey
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OK having watched that rubbish, that is several minutes of my life I won't get back.
This is one reason why I am on FlyerTalk I get no commission, no deals, no credit card referrals and no SurfShark referrals. It's baloney which is borne either out of ignorance or possibly he has a vested interest in spouting this rubbish. We are very lucky that there are many other like minded souls in this forum and elsewhere in FT, I won't name them but you will know who they are. They too put out good and factual content without vested interests in stake, or indeed copying other people's mistakes.
Unlike what he clearly stated, with a note of authority in his voice, BA's public fares are exactly that. In the good old days you could go to your public library and see them in big fat directories made by OAG and others. These days you can use ITA Matrix, Expertflyer and many other tools to see the fares for yourself. There are a few private fares - there used to be more - there are corporate fares and there are industry fares. Private fares are all but public anyway, you just to delve into it a bit more.
On top of that is the inadequacy of the current web front end used by BA.com, which shows one leg at a time and then adds it. The £100 difference was on one leg, by changing the date criteria you can get that anytime you want, what you then do is add the return leg and end up with the return fare. You will note there wasn't forensic detail on this. But I wager than had he used either the old front end OR continued to compare true flights on specific fares, there would be no difference.
To be an aviation blogger you need to blog, you don't need to know anything about aviation. To get anywhere on Flyertalk you need specifics, you need details, they can be challenged by others who are also knowledgeable. But you don't need a VPN provider to slip a few bob into your back pocket. And you certainly don't need to change your IP address. Speaking only for myself, I'm keenly aware of what are the "right" fares in my area since the sums of money in my case are off the scale enormous. I'm also doing these flights regularly so I can see the patterns and trends. I book my travel in multiple locations. I also have access to another industry GDS so I can compare on the list fares, and I've got ExpertFlyer too as a backup. What I say here others can (and must) challenge. This is how it should be. I know the way of world is going, fake analysis over fact and peer reviewed research, but sometimes we need to be very clear when it is happening.
This is one reason why I am on FlyerTalk I get no commission, no deals, no credit card referrals and no SurfShark referrals. It's baloney which is borne either out of ignorance or possibly he has a vested interest in spouting this rubbish. We are very lucky that there are many other like minded souls in this forum and elsewhere in FT, I won't name them but you will know who they are. They too put out good and factual content without vested interests in stake, or indeed copying other people's mistakes.
Unlike what he clearly stated, with a note of authority in his voice, BA's public fares are exactly that. In the good old days you could go to your public library and see them in big fat directories made by OAG and others. These days you can use ITA Matrix, Expertflyer and many other tools to see the fares for yourself. There are a few private fares - there used to be more - there are corporate fares and there are industry fares. Private fares are all but public anyway, you just to delve into it a bit more.
On top of that is the inadequacy of the current web front end used by BA.com, which shows one leg at a time and then adds it. The £100 difference was on one leg, by changing the date criteria you can get that anytime you want, what you then do is add the return leg and end up with the return fare. You will note there wasn't forensic detail on this. But I wager than had he used either the old front end OR continued to compare true flights on specific fares, there would be no difference.
To be an aviation blogger you need to blog, you don't need to know anything about aviation. To get anywhere on Flyertalk you need specifics, you need details, they can be challenged by others who are also knowledgeable. But you don't need a VPN provider to slip a few bob into your back pocket. And you certainly don't need to change your IP address. Speaking only for myself, I'm keenly aware of what are the "right" fares in my area since the sums of money in my case are off the scale enormous. I'm also doing these flights regularly so I can see the patterns and trends. I book my travel in multiple locations. I also have access to another industry GDS so I can compare on the list fares, and I've got ExpertFlyer too as a backup. What I say here others can (and must) challenge. This is how it should be. I know the way of world is going, fake analysis over fact and peer reviewed research, but sometimes we need to be very clear when it is happening.
VPN method aside, it doesn't sound like you are refuting that lower fare buckets could be accessed depending on POS, which can be accessed by calling a different call centre? Or is the POS hard-linked to city of origin, as others have suggested?
Aug 21, 2019, 4:03 am
#14
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Ipswich
Posts: 7,543
POS is hard-linked to city of origin on ba.com. I don't know of any way round that. I don't think that's the case when phoning in, although not all agents/centres seem to be able/willing to switch POS.
Aug 21, 2019, 4:03 am
#15
Join Date: Jun 2015
Location: LHR, LGW
Programs: BAEC
Posts: 3,396
hahaha this made me laugh and one thing I dislike myself, wasting time that I can’t back. 
