Airline Booking Agents (Websites) use Scarcity to make you Purchase Sooner than Later.

Here is a little known marketing directive served up from airline booking sites.  Test it yourself or remember if you witnessed it when you were looking for airfare.

This is what happens.  You are looking for airfare and you go to your favorite booking airfare site to compare rates, travel days and time.  You might find what arrangements you like and the price is just OK, but you are not ready to purchase at the time.  You think the price just might get better in the future.  Then you try again to see the pricing for your travel dates and time.  The price is gone higher and the available seats have gone down.  Humm.  You try a third time because you are now worried about the travel dates and times.  You are not so flexible and need to travel at those times.  The reality sets in and now you will have to pay more for the airfare you just looked at a day ago.  The airfare is even higher now and the seats on the carrier is also falling.  Your decision to purchase is made because you don’t want to pay more the next day and you want the seats before they are all gone. 

What really happened to your buying decision?  The marketing strategy of scarcity was used to make you purchase sooner than later.  The constant higher pricing and the lack of seats pushed you to purchase the airfare.

The site using this technique operate by putting cookies on your computer system when you visit them.  The site knows when you come back and pumps up the price and reduces the seat count.  Each time you come back to the site, you are identified and the price goes up while the seat count goes even lower.  The scarcity of the offer is now compelling you to purchase the tickets before the price gets higher and there are no seats available.

This marketing operation is common in booking and sales type sites.  There is a way to beat it and get your airfare at the best rate possible.  You need to close your browser, then go to your history and reset or whip it out and clean all your cookies.  You can do this trough your system or download programs which do this kind of maintenance for you.  I personally use a free PC tool called CCleaner.

Try this method and see if you get the original rate for the specific dates of travel.  What a surprise!!

Save your money and shop smart!