You’ve heard it before—search for flights in Incognito mode, and you’ll find cheaper airfare. It’s a trick passed around on travel forums, whispered about by budget-conscious travelers, and repeated in countless ‘hacks’ articles. But does it actually work? Or is it just another travel myth that refuses to die?
Why Do People Believe This Myth?
Airline ticket pricing can be confusing and often leads people to believe that airlines are conspiring to charge the highest possible ticket price. One common myth is that using a private browsing window or Incognito mode will help you find cheaper tickets. The belief is that if an airline knows, based on your history, that you’re searching for a specific flight, their system displays a higher price because they know you’re interested in taking that flight. This would be similar to seeing a TV in a store for $500, but when you return to buy it later, they see you coming and raise the price to $600.
What Experts Say About Private Browsing and Airfare Prices
This myth has been busted so many times that it’s hard to keep track. In 2023, the Washington Post debunked this myth, along with others.
“It is understandable when faced with a change in pricing that our customers might attribute the change to their individual actions, but that is not the case,” Hawaiian Airlines spokesperson Alex Da Silva said in an email.
In 2024, USA Today also covered the topic with the same result.
However, airlines also don’t have such granular price control that a handful of searches by one person will result in a customized higher price.
Although we tend to believe that many things happen as a result of our actions, there are often other factors at play. As it turns out, using Incognito mode on a Chrome browser doesn’t prevent airlines from seeing your previous searches. This is because their “privacy mode” isn’t as private as one might think.
Photo by Lorenzo Cafaro on Pexels.com
Why Incognito Mode Won’t Fool Airlines
For the private browsing fare hack to work, which it doesn’t, it would depend on the airlines or travel agencies not knowing that you looked for a flight before. Despite the implication, Incognito mode isn’t designed to hide your browsing history from airlines or travel agencies. Instead, it only prevents your browser from saving your search history, cookies, and other data—but it doesn’t hide your activity from websites or airlines.
In 2023, Google settled a $5 billion privacy lawsuit over tracking people using ‘Incognito mode.’ They’ve also changed the wording to inform users that websites can track user activity.
In Incognito, none of your browsing history, cookies and site data, or information entered in forms are saved on your device. This means your activity doesn’t show up in your Chrome browser history, so people who also use your device won’t find your activity. Websites see you as a new user and won’t know who you are, as long as you don’t sign in.
Proven Tricks to Actually Save on Airfare
When it comes to finding cheaper airfare, using private browsing mode may not necessarily help. However, there are several other tricks you can use to your advantage. One trick is to look at alternate airports. For example, if you’re flying to a major city, consider looking at smaller regional airports nearby.
Another way to save is the hidden-city pricing trick. Known as Skiplagging, this involves booking a flight with a layover at your intended destination but then getting off the plane at the layover point instead of continuing to your final destination (we don’t necessarily recommend this one due to risks like this and this, but it’s done often enough that we feel we should mention it).
Of course, it’s important to remember that these tricks may not always work and may come with certain risks and limitations. It’s always a good idea to do your research and weigh your options carefully before making any travel arrangements.
Cover Photo by Jessica Lewis 🦋 thepaintedsquare: via Pexels
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1 comment
Incognito mode can indeed help, but you have to do it correctly. In short, you open a fresh incognito window, perform a search and THEN CLOSE THAT WINDOW. That will clear cookies from that search. Then you repeat the process in a new window. Using different browsers and even an occasional VPN session will further anonymize things but usually all that’s necessary is to get rid of those cookies and start a new session.