Why some people pay less for exactly the same holiday

When you’re planning a holiday, it pays to stay on top of the numbers – after all, even luxury travellers don’t want to spend money unnecessarily.

For years, there have been rumours that airlines and hotels are charging customers different prices, sometimes depending on things like their location, their internet history, and what sort of device they are using (i.e. mobile phone or laptop).

Are travellers really being stung by extra charges because of how they book their holiday? And how can you be sure you’re getting the best price possible on a particular flight or hotel? Here’s what our investigation revealed.

Is it cheaper to book on your mobile?

In some cases, yes. The big hotel platforms (such as Booking.com, Expedia and Agoda) are open about allowing their hotel providers to set special prices for customers using the company’s app.

How can the practice be justified? Presumably, it’s meant to give us an incentive to download their apps. But my investigation revealed that some of those deals weren’t so special after all.

I checked for mobile-only deals in ten tourist hotspots for December on Booking.com’s app. But when I compared the prices to those on the website, only four were cheaper (with only two of those saving more than 10 per cent).

By contrast, five of them were more expensive than the standard price, sometimes by a significant amount (one was almost twice the price), and one was the same price.

As for Expedia, six were cheaper (usually by around 5 per cent), three were the same price, and one was more expensive.

How does this happen? Expedia told me that it aims to “provide travellers with competitive rates”, and part of that is giving them multiple options across its website and apps.

Booking.com said that “our accommodation partners are fully in control of the rates they choose” and that incidents of mobile rates being higher could be because of partners running other deals at the same time.

Do airlines offer mobile-only prices?

Given most airlines now have their own apps, could they start offering special prices just for app users? When I asked some of the big names, British Airways, Ryanair and easyJet all confirmed that customers will get the same price whether using their website or app.

The budget airline Wizz Air, which often runs short “flash” sales, told me that it does sometimes run discount prices on its app – but that its website encourages customers to download the app to check for deals.

Should I clear my ‘cookies’ before I book?

Regular travellers may have heard rumours over the years of airlines offering different prices depending on your online behaviour – information they can glean from the “cookies” you pick up as you browse the internet.

If it sounds a little complex, don’t worry too much. Aviation insiders insist that the idea of ticket prices responding to your browsing history is an urban myth.

What airlines do use, though, is extremely sophisticated dynamic pricing techniques which react to real-time indicators of demand and change prices accordingly. A surge in interest for a flight, perhaps after the announcement of a football game or pop concert, will almost certainly push up prices as customers snap up seats.

“Airlines apply the principles of supply and demand like any other business, they can just do it quicker than most,” says aviation expert John Grant of analyst OAG.

Does currency make a difference?

There’s usually a simple rule when it comes to currency conversions and travel providers, which is to never be fooled into allowing them to convert the price to GBP.

The reason is simple: most websites will use an exchange rate which, while not outlandish, is almost certainly worse than the one you’d get via your bank.

There used to be persistent rumours that some airlines offered better prices to customers paying in certain currencies. But these days that is unlikely, given that almost all flights are priced in the currency of the departing airport (i.e. a flight from Madrid will be priced in euros for all customers).

Eagle-eyed types may have spotted one irritating wrinkle with Ryanair, which uses a distorted £1/€1 exchange rate when pricing things like seat selection and extra baggage. It means that the same front row seat would cost €21 (£17.50) on a flight from Lisbon, but £21 on a flight from Stansted.

This pricing glitch doesn’t affect passengers on the same flight, but it still means that identical perks cost more just because your flight departs from a UK airport.

Localised prices – myth or reality?

Do airlines offer cheaper prices to customers booking from a certain country? These claims are often made (conveniently) by companies touting so-called VPNs, which allow web-users to hide their location.

There’s one big problem though: when consumer experts have tried this for themselves, they’ve struggled to find any significant savings on flights beyond minor currency fluctuations.

Indeed John Grant from OAG dismissed the idea of cheaper prices for different localities as a “red herring” and my own experiment with a VPN found no evidence to the contrary.

So what did the airlines say? Ryanair, easyJet and WizzAir all confirmed that passengers will see the same price regardless of location, also they do run discounts on certain routes.

What about using local travel agents?

Just when I thought I’d solved the country-based pricing question came a complication – with travel expert Rob Burgess (founder of Head for Points) confirming that some airlines (including British Airways) may sometimes offer different prices for customers based in a certain country.

That said, there is a big catch. “You won’t find these tickets on BA’s website, where all flights are priced according to your departure point, but you may find them if you booked through a local seller, like a travel agent,” he told me.

Given that airlines will mandate in their terms and conditions that partner agents should only sell to certain geographic markets, you will likely be unable to buy them. Even if you do, there’s every chance it will be refunded and cancelled if it’s found that you’ve broken the rules.

Do hotel platforms make their own rules?

While cheaper flights might be a struggle, it turns out that the situation with hotels is more complicated, with some platforms allowing for country-based prices.

Booking.com lets its hotel customers set special “Country Rates” for travellers coming from a certain country. Their website recommends the system for those hotels looking to target a certain market – i.e. a Kensington hotel looking to bring in more American tourists.

But there’s a catch. As with mobile pricing, hotels can use the tool to set a higher price and potentially make more money from travellers from a certain country.

Why would they do that? Interestingly, I spotted that Booking.com was encouraging hotels to set Country Rates for domestic travellers during the summer of 2020, when travel restrictions led to unprecedented demand for staycations…

How can you use the system to your advantage? In theory, you could use a VPN to find the best deal, but you’d have no idea of which hotels are offering these special rates and which aren’t.