22 thoughts on “Hawaii Travel Deals Vanish Suddenly with Latest Innovations”
MJ
Thank for the Great article, Folks!
Here’s a few tricks for those who are savvy (if not, ask your kids for help, LOL)
1.) Use a VPN when checking out prices and flights (prevents them from knowing your IP Address)
2,) Immediately clear the cookies on that device when done.
3.) Use DuckDuckGo Browser with the “Clear all tabs and data” (flame) feature for 1-touch erasure
4.) Don’t look at the flight you want multiple times. It increases the “Viewed Peg Count” and can cause an increase for prices on that flight, even without purchases being made.
Should be illegal. Look the next day and it jumped $250 for the same exact dates.
Also, if you’re booking 3-4 people, be sure to check the price for just 1 person and 2 people. I had to book 3 family members separately so I can get those tickets at 40k. When I punched in all 4 of us, it was 70k a person, ridiculous.
Why place limits on dynamic pricing? Why not include grocery stores. Can you imagine going into a store to shop, and have your food items priced dynamically while you’re shopping? You’d better check out STAT! Is it really that far fetched? How about your doctor visits and medications dynamically priced? How about gas, while you’re pumping (haven’t finished your purchase yet) you can see the price go up because there’s lots of other people pumping gas! Dynamic pricing just smacks of something, bordering on, illegal if not unethical business practice.
The supermarkets have been trying to figure out how to do dynamic pricing for years. The club cards were introduced for exactly that reason – they tried to roll out “self checkout” shopping at the same time so that your cart could display the price as you went through the store. They told customers that they wanted to offer discounts and services with those clubs – but that wasn’t the real reason. The dynamic grocery pricing hasn’t worked yet – but Amazon and others haven’t given up yet. (I spent my career in Silicon Valley doing database work. Worked with airlines and grocery stores and banks and many others.) Personally, I think we need to get government working so this can be regulated.
Yes. While I’m a capitalist at heart I see inherent dangers here, especially a type of monopoly that could force the little guy (both companies And fliers without deep pockets) out of Hawaiian air travel. This affects everyone, from tourists to Hawaiian business people and those just flying to the mainland to see family (kids at college, etc.).
It’s possibly an antitrust issue, especially if the airlines collude via a 3rd party software service.
In any case, it should remain true that booking earlier than ~6 months will tend to yield lower prices since you will be one of the first to claim empty seats and rooms.
Aloha! Very interesting article! I wonder how fare monitoring services like Google Flights and others will be affected by this. If fares change multiple times per day, or become constantly variable, will a Google Flights monitoring alert even be valid, or actually drive up a rate with everyone suddenly checking the fares after a monitoring price alert goes out? Same could be said for a Beat of Hawaii email blast about low fares. When a few hundred (or more) people suddenly check rates after a deal alert, the Architect software suddenly senses this and raises rates? Hmmm…. Mahalo for all you do BOH!
I have seen this in action while reviewing options over time before selecting recent flights. Basically, you can not “beat” their data harvesting and end goal dynamic pricing to lock you in to what you consider to be an acceptable “highest” price you will pay. The equilizer is demand significantly going down and that is very unlikely. When AA bought US Airways a number of years back,, I noticed how AA found a way to seperate you from your money on every aspect of flying. This dynmaic pricing is just the next generation of their “revenue enhancement.” Good luck all!
I’ve tried searching incognito trying to find better prices. Lately, however, it brings up the same price. Also, don’t always search on your phone. For hotels, I’ve gotten better prices on the Marriott website via my laptop than on their app. As for premium seats prices, I check daily. Sometimes (on American) the charge will drop in half. The next day, it’s back to the higher price.
We are in the process of booking our 5th trip to the Big Island in the last 7 years, our son lives there. Thanks to you, we’ve been able to find some reasonable priced flights in the past. However, it’s been a little more challenging currently. We are flyng fron the midwest, MSP specifically, to Kona mid to the end of June. Current prices are in the $900 range, do you see them coming down in the near future? When would be the best time to buy? Thanks for all you do.
Thank you. Yes, $887 RT with the best connection on Delta. You can make it cheaper by $100 or so by flying one way on Delta and the other way on American.
It’s actually a good price for the current environment, and there’s no reason to expect it to go lower.
Yes, flying from anywhere else than the West Coast is expensive. East Coast and Mid West rarely get a good deal, and never on the scale of the West Coast.
If I were a skilled young program developer I would now look at the consumer side of this equation and develop the corresponding software to “counter” the sophistication of the airlines marketing. I think it would be an excellent business opportunity. I’m not sure the existing aggregators or third party broker/agents do this adequately.
Peter on Long Island
Thank for the Great article, Folks!
Here’s a few tricks for those who are savvy (if not, ask your kids for help, LOL)
1.) Use a VPN when checking out prices and flights (prevents them from knowing your IP Address)
2,) Immediately clear the cookies on that device when done.
3.) Use DuckDuckGo Browser with the “Clear all tabs and data” (flame) feature for 1-touch erasure
4.) Don’t look at the flight you want multiple times. It increases the “Viewed Peg Count” and can cause an increase for prices on that flight, even without purchases being made.
Should be illegal. Look the next day and it jumped $250 for the same exact dates.
Also, if you’re booking 3-4 people, be sure to check the price for just 1 person and 2 people. I had to book 3 family members separately so I can get those tickets at 40k. When I punched in all 4 of us, it was 70k a person, ridiculous.
All that technology and brain power, and this is how we use it. We should be ashamed.
Why place limits on dynamic pricing? Why not include grocery stores. Can you imagine going into a store to shop, and have your food items priced dynamically while you’re shopping? You’d better check out STAT! Is it really that far fetched? How about your doctor visits and medications dynamically priced? How about gas, while you’re pumping (haven’t finished your purchase yet) you can see the price go up because there’s lots of other people pumping gas! Dynamic pricing just smacks of something, bordering on, illegal if not unethical business practice.
The supermarkets have been trying to figure out how to do dynamic pricing for years. The club cards were introduced for exactly that reason – they tried to roll out “self checkout” shopping at the same time so that your cart could display the price as you went through the store. They told customers that they wanted to offer discounts and services with those clubs – but that wasn’t the real reason. The dynamic grocery pricing hasn’t worked yet – but Amazon and others haven’t given up yet. (I spent my career in Silicon Valley doing database work. Worked with airlines and grocery stores and banks and many others.) Personally, I think we need to get government working so this can be regulated.
Yes. While I’m a capitalist at heart I see inherent dangers here, especially a type of monopoly that could force the little guy (both companies And fliers without deep pockets) out of Hawaiian air travel. This affects everyone, from tourists to Hawaiian business people and those just flying to the mainland to see family (kids at college, etc.).
It’s possibly an antitrust issue, especially if the airlines collude via a 3rd party software service.
In any case, it should remain true that booking earlier than ~6 months will tend to yield lower prices since you will be one of the first to claim empty seats and rooms.
Aloha! Very interesting article! I wonder how fare monitoring services like Google Flights and others will be affected by this. If fares change multiple times per day, or become constantly variable, will a Google Flights monitoring alert even be valid, or actually drive up a rate with everyone suddenly checking the fares after a monitoring price alert goes out? Same could be said for a Beat of Hawaii email blast about low fares. When a few hundred (or more) people suddenly check rates after a deal alert, the Architect software suddenly senses this and raises rates? Hmmm…. Mahalo for all you do BOH!
Hi Buddy.
Thanks. Good questions. This will be interesting to watch as it evolves.
Aloha.
I have seen this in action while reviewing options over time before selecting recent flights. Basically, you can not “beat” their data harvesting and end goal dynamic pricing to lock you in to what you consider to be an acceptable “highest” price you will pay. The equilizer is demand significantly going down and that is very unlikely. When AA bought US Airways a number of years back,, I noticed how AA found a way to seperate you from your money on every aspect of flying. This dynmaic pricing is just the next generation of their “revenue enhancement.” Good luck all!
I’ve tried searching incognito trying to find better prices. Lately, however, it brings up the same price. Also, don’t always search on your phone. For hotels, I’ve gotten better prices on the Marriott website via my laptop than on their app. As for premium seats prices, I check daily. Sometimes (on American) the charge will drop in half. The next day, it’s back to the higher price.
We are in the process of booking our 5th trip to the Big Island in the last 7 years, our son lives there. Thanks to you, we’ve been able to find some reasonable priced flights in the past. However, it’s been a little more challenging currently. We are flyng fron the midwest, MSP specifically, to Kona mid to the end of June. Current prices are in the $900 range, do you see them coming down in the near future? When would be the best time to buy? Thanks for all you do.
Hi Dave.
Thank you. Yes, $887 RT with the best connection on Delta. You can make it cheaper by $100 or so by flying one way on Delta and the other way on American.
It’s actually a good price for the current environment, and there’s no reason to expect it to go lower.
Aloha.
Yes, flying from anywhere else than the West Coast is expensive. East Coast and Mid West rarely get a good deal, and never on the scale of the West Coast.
If I were a skilled young program developer I would now look at the consumer side of this equation and develop the corresponding software to “counter” the sophistication of the airlines marketing. I think it would be an excellent business opportunity. I’m not sure the existing aggregators or third party broker/agents do this adequately.
Peter on Long Island
Read my post. It’s a start.