Southwest Airlines different prices on different devices!

Last night I was halfway listening to a report (60 Minutes?) about some travel service programming their sites to show a higher price on some Apple devices (or was it lower?).

Anyway, just for giggles during a break in the action this afternoon I decided to see what I would get. I pulled up a hypothetical trip next spring, less than 10 minutes apart on the office PC and on my Samsung droid phone.

Sure enough, the prices were different! Average of about $20 or so per flight leg. Samsung phone was cheaper! On the PC, the first flight out was cheapest at like $203 or so. On the phone, the second flight out was cheapest at $185.

On both, the flights back early in the morning (NO WAY) were cheapest, but the prices were again slightly lower on the phone. What was amazing was a very convenient flight for me, one that stops in Denver, was outrageously high on the PC but affordable on the phone.

Anybody wanna sanity check my findings here? I was quite surprised at the difference!

 

Sorry DMR, I'm still not getting a smartphone. :evillaugh

 

Good idea, Joe. I'm thinking about getting rid of my I-phone. Can't stand having a device in my pocket that's smarter than I...

 

tried it on 4G smart phone vs home network using laptop at same time, got same price.

 

Tried it on my PC, Android, and iPhone. All the same prices.

 

I have noticed this with cnn.com.......sometimes one has newer news then the other. I guess it just takes different times to update a system. Maybe this is the same thing? I have found southwest updates multiple times a day, so maybe you happened to look while price updates were still updating? Try it again....

 

I do seem to remember a few travel sites, can't remember specific ones, which would have cookies save to your PC, and the cookies would then enable the site to realize you'd visited before and push the price up on you.

 

Yes, I have visited Southwest many times on the office PC.

The same report said that Sunday was a good day to price flights. I will try the same test this Sunday at home, being careful to clear the cookies and such on both the PC and the phone before I try.