I've been looking at a particular Melbourne > Bangkok flight for a while now and it's stayed at the same price of $245 for the past week and up until I called Jetstar to make a general enquiry. The staff over the phone tried to end the call asking if I wanted to book the flight with him to reserve the price as it may increase later on - I refused.
I go back on the site and when I try to check out with the $245 price, it says it's "sold out". I refresh and now the only price is for $320, and 80% of the flight is not booked based off what I see in the seat selection. To note - I have Club Jetstar and I am logged in.
I ask my partner and I try to go through it all logged out and the $245 flight can be searched for and booked, not "sold out". But as soon as I "log in" the price of the flight is magically $320 again.
Has anyone heard of this or experienced targeted price inflating? I know prices can be inflated if you use a link referred from other sites (like a cash rebate site) but selective targetting after a phone conversation seems much and really deceptive?
Yep, this does happen for some airlines and even hotel bookings. They track your cookies and can inflate prices of things you've been looking at, highly doubt linked to phone call though. Could also be complete coincidence and it actually is sold out if you tried to buy it or a glitch somewhere.
PM me details if you want me to give it a go and verify if it's available.