Good...Delta executives have become pros at fleecing the taxpayer. From AI pricing to stealing Covid funds!

https://www.the-sun.com/travel/14901...ange-backlash/

Do you trust this response?

No not at all, especially since it basically is the opposite of what DL execs have previously publicly stated for how they want AI to customize and individualize pricing.

I wouldn't really count on senior DL execs having all that strong of understanding of how it all works. The same for the journalists and politicians who have been commenting on it. As linked above, the Fetcherr site itself has a pretty decent overview on the technology.
https://www.fetcherr.io/blog/dynamic...ng-in-aviation

Was showing an older friend how to book a DL ticket online. I had my device and he had his. As I walked him through how to do it, my price kept coming up HIGHER on my device than his!! I was signed in; he was not. Even when going back and re-doing the booking my price was higher! Neither of us "bought" a ticket, we were just "shopping!"

So, it does happen that, probably because I'm a "regular" with status that I'm getting a higher fare--THIS JUST ISN'T FAIR!!! AI is discriminating!!!

It's most likely that he was seeing outdated fare buckets that no longer existed. It is an issue (from a bait and switch perspective) but there is no evidence that Delta is doing individualized pricing today (at least for outright ticket purchases... obviously there is substantial evidence that they do individualized pricing for upgrade offers).

Were multiple attempts made on both devices contemporaneously? That would preclude this being due to legacy info on the friend's device.

If OP is sure of his observation, share it with Congress folks who wrote the letter to DL.

Yes, we were back and forth with the various options a number of times and the price differential continued.

Well, if this ever happens again, go through the purchase process entirely and see if it actually lets you complete the transaction... and then share the results. You can then immediately cancel for a refund to your form of payment under the DOT-mandated 24 hour refund rule.

I am not defending Delta here (because either way this is bad practice), but the reality is that you and your older friend were likely hitting two different cache servers (or even cache keys on the same server).

Going through to the final payment page (and certainly doing the actual payment) triggers a validation of available fare inventory. There's a 99% chance that it would have said "Oops, this fare is no longer available." Again, this is an issue from a bait and switch perspective, but it is probably not individual pricing.

There seem to be a few workarounds - you could book the lower-priced fare and then tag it with your FFN after-the-fact. There's also calling in and asking if the agent can see it.

One issue I've increasingly run into is Delta.com not "playing nice" unless I'm logged in on some browsers.

My guess is there was only one seat left in that lower fare bucket and your friend was in the process of booking it so you were quoted the next higher fare bucket fare.

this has definitely been happening to me quite a bit lately

The obvious question here is why aren't there more reports if this is actually happening on any sort of regular basis? I've been using Google Flights to price DL/Skyteam flights for years now and generally only bring up fares on delta.com when I'm looking to purchase (as I suspect many here do as well). Even when I'm using a companion cert, I first start at Google Flights to get an idea which flights/dates have the best fares. You'd think if this were actually happening there'd be more reports of prices not matching what's showing on Google Flights once you login to your account to purchase. There are also all the OTAs out there where you can do anonymous pricing.

Wouldn't that produce the described results only if the second person was to search first during each iteration of the experiment?

I'm sorry, but where is the substantial evidence that upgrade offers are priced individually? I've seen several situations where two people have been presented with an upgrade offer for the same flight, and in all cases the offers were the same. Obviously, limited sample size in my case, but I curious if there is actual data to support your assertion. I'm not saying your are wrong (because I don't actually know that), but I always like seeing evidence.