Surge Pricing Could Be Coming To Plane Tickets And We’re Not Thrilled

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In some fab new flight fee news, airlines may soon charge different passengers different prices for the same ticket.

The fancy term is “dynamic pricing,” but we all know what that really means. Every city dweller is familiar with the idea of paying more to travel at peak times from our favorite Uber/Lyft feature: surge pricing.

I mean, we all wanted flights to look more like Uber, right? That’s what Uber Helicopter was all about. Many airlines already do this — holiday flight prices are proof in itself. But airlines want to take dynamic pricing a step further. In addition to spiking costs at peak travel times, airlines would changes prices based on a specific passenger’s travel history.

For instance, business travelers might see more expensive tickets compared to frequent flyers with loyalty perks on certain airlines. You know how items chase you around the internet once you view it once on Amazon? This would be like that, except with flights. Airline websites would use cookies to figure out and remember who you are when you want to book a ticket.

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Ideally, this kind of system would mostly benefit loyal customers (giving them the best deals) and suggest cheap flights to returning customers. But it could also mean raising prices on people who will buy the flight no matter what (business travelers and luxury travelers) or mistaking travelers’ trip goals.

Ever browse $1,000 shoes just for kicks and then see related ads pop up on every website you visit for the next week? Dynamic pricing could do something similar. If you search a trip from Chicago to Atlanta from Monday to Thursday, an algorithm might label you as a business traveler and show you fares catered to that profile.

Bottom line? This could make finding the absolute best flight deal to a certain destination a lot harder.

Right now, there’s some fine print standing in the way of airlines adopting this method for all flights. But according to Travel Weekly, there are at least 11 airlines rolling out dynamic pricing already. They can’t cater to your exact profile yet — just a class of person and budget — but the tech is out there and there’s definitely interest in using it.