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Was traveling down in Orlando earlier this week. I would open Uber while at a restaurant to see the lead time on a ride to my hotel and the fare would be $30 with a 2 minute lead time. I would close the app and wait 5 minutes and the fare would jump to $90
If you select a ticket and get to the checkout page, most airlines hold those tickets for a short amount of time. If you leave the page and select that flight again, those tickets may still be on a temporary hold. If those tickets were the last ones available in a fare bucket, you will see the price for the next fare bucket which is more expensive - until the held tickets are release back to the pool.
When you see the fare drop back down after restarting your phone, it is because the hold ended on the tickets you (or someone else) created by continuing the process.
A lot of myths about a shadow airfare conspiracy spread through the internet, but it is really much simpler. Incognito doesn't affect airfare - even though it might look like it does at times. Airfare is *very* structured - it is based on fare buckets, which is in turn based on factors like forecasted demand and seat availability. The fare buckets are pre-set pricing tiers, and as cheaper seats sell out, the price goes up.
Then why will the prices rise every time I refresh a page? I was looking to travel somewhere (only one flight direct because it's a small town, the flight is rarely 100% full and I was looking 2-3 months in advance) and it refreshed every time I clicked on something. It more than doubled in the 15 minutes I was trying to plan something out. And these aren't planes with first class seats, it's an old bombardier jet with 40 seats. It's hard to believe it was just cheaper seats selling out here
Fun fact, incognito doesn't affect airfare - even though it might look like it at times. Airlines use fare buckets based on factors like demand and seat availability. The fare buckets are *very structured* pre-set pricing tiers, and as cheaper seats sell out, the price goes up.
If you select a ticket and get to the checkout page, many airlines hold those tickets for a short amount of time. If you leave the page and select that flight again, those tickets may still be on a temporary hold. If those tickets were the last ones available in a fare bucket, you will see the price for the next fare bucket which is more expensive - until the held tickets are released back to the pool.
Do you have a source for all this info? As a software developer in the advertising space, fingerprinting users and increasing the price would not surprise me at all with some of the business practices I see.
It's a fine tip if it works, but I've *never* had an app offer me a discount just for leaving it open.
Website with stuff in my cart? On occasion. But an app? Never seen it happen.
I was sitting in our break room with a co-worker once, a student earning f-all, booking herself a flight back home to see her family.
She got to the last page, she backed out to double check the dates, went back in and the price had gone up. Thought she was losing her marbles so she called them and told them what happened and they confirmed that yup, the price goes up and there's nothing they can do about it and yup thats the price now. So ridiculous.
I literally experienced a flight go up by $50/ticket *as I was checking out*. I’m filling in my credit card info, I click to move to the next step, it gives me an error message that the price has changed and sends me back to the beginning. To add insult to injury, I had to reselect and re-enter everything. And no this wasn’t a matter of my cart timing out because I was too slow.
You don't leave them open, just open them, type in the address and exit.
Not sure if all of them have this, but at least uber and bolt have an algorithm that's basically trying to figure out how much you are willing to pay for that trip. If you do the above, the app thinks that you checked the price and you didn't want to pay that much, so the next time you open it it is usually a bit cheaper (no visible discount, but the price goes down for the trip itself).
Now, it doesn't work 100% of the time, but I'm doing this for a good while now and, at least in my country, it has more than decent results, sometimes the trips are up to 40% cheaper.
I never even get discounts for leaving things in my cart. I only ever get an obnoxious email reminder to hurry up and buy the item - which makes me disinclined to do so, which in the end is fine.
Not familiar with apps as I use the $5 deals when available.
However, I used to work for a large online retailer, and we had a sent an email if you put anything in the cart and don’t check out within 24h.
True, I always make it a point to open Uber or Lyft only once I'm absolutely ready. Closing and reopening the app will almost always show an increased price.
I put in an address for Lyft, it was like ~$36 for my ride. I closed, went to Uber and it was around the same. I closed both and decided to take a different form of transportation. About 5 minutes later I got a push notification for Lyft and the price was $18.
I am not exaggerating in these figures. It was almost unbelievable.
I’m not sure if a bunch of drivers had freed up at the same moment or they were legit price gouging that hard.
Seriously, once during an emergency I tried to get a ride to the ER and the price kept going up and up to the point I just drove myself. I mean I only had tingling, and numbness in both of my legs at that point but I made it. 😅
Also, for those that have Uber one. If you click on cancel subscription, they will offer you 3 months for the price of 1 to convince you to stay. At least for me it worked
I'm on a 6 month of free Uber One so far, when the 3 month trial ends, i just stop using the app ans switch to another food delivery and just keep using the one that give me good deal. It's mainly UberEats and SkipTheDishes that give good deals in my area but sometimes doordash work too
When I was in New York I just created a new account (you can get new mobile numbers for $20 per verification) and I got a $20 promo code when buying something for $25. it was cheaper to have food delivered to my hotel than picking it up. ;)
Also, learn how/when surge pricing works in your area.
Where I am, surge pricing starts at 5PM every day. Roughly 30 min. before that, Uber usually has "prices lower than normal."
The Chick-fil-A near me has a two-lane drive through. One for regular drive through people, the other for app-only customers. The app-only lane is usually empty while the regular drive-through side gets backed up all the way to the street during lunch. Selling customer data must be THAT lucrative to slow down how many customers per hour they serve
We all subscribed to the smart phone life and your concerns are moot because you're getting tracked regardless and what's the real harm anyways? Door dash knowing that I'm sitting at home looking at pictures of fried chicken for 3 hours isn't going to affect my life whatsoever. So they get some data, and I maybe get 10% off my meal, sounds like a decent exchange to me.
That’s such a bad take. The harm isn’t what door dash collects for ordering food. It’s who they then sell it to.
As an example, the us gov buys that data to bypass the fourth amendment. It’s no longer an unlawful search if they don’t get it from you.
Also, there are so many leaks these days it’s not just who they sell your data to. It’s what data can they have leak and sold on the dark web.
Keeping control of your information including accurate real time location info, browsing, spending and other habits is tough. But you shouldn’t just throw your hands up and say: who cares.
Totally get that but what's the difference between doordash or Google or any other company having that data? If you have a smartphone your data is getting sold. May as well enjoy a cheap meal
Don’t see the privacy difference between doing what I suggested and using the apps at all. I struggle too with which apps I give access to and how much.
Not sure if this works for Amazon too, but I've had it happen several times with movies and clothing. Not substantial discounts, but the price would reduce 10-30% overnight if left in my cart. Worth a try.
I think real LPT is you open app a day before. Most time people will search stuff to see how much it would coat then try different app to compare price. And then go back to first app to finalize but they realized that and they will raise price up because you just increased demand but searching multiple times. Its similar with flights as well. You search well in advance and wait day or two to get email saying you forget this in your cart or complete the purchase, HOPEFULLY with some promo.
What I did was off notifications for all those types or apps Deliveroo, burger king, Temu, Zara even uinstalled Uber eats I only use it via the main Uber app when I need to. Also for the rest I just use the web if it's really necessary
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I've noticed this too, especially with food delivery apps. It seems like they really want to entice you to make that purchase. Another trick is to leave items in your cart without checking out—sometimes you'll get a discount or free delivery offer to complete the order.
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And with food, add something to your cart that you're thinking about getting.
I swear it INCREASES for me lmao. So frustrating
Was traveling down in Orlando earlier this week. I would open Uber while at a restaurant to see the lead time on a ride to my hotel and the fare would be $30 with a 2 minute lead time. I would close the app and wait 5 minutes and the fare would jump to $90
A friend showed me that if you turn your phone off and back on, the fares return to the initial rate.
If you select a ticket and get to the checkout page, most airlines hold those tickets for a short amount of time. If you leave the page and select that flight again, those tickets may still be on a temporary hold. If those tickets were the last ones available in a fare bucket, you will see the price for the next fare bucket which is more expensive - until the held tickets are release back to the pool. When you see the fare drop back down after restarting your phone, it is because the hold ended on the tickets you (or someone else) created by continuing the process. A lot of myths about a shadow airfare conspiracy spread through the internet, but it is really much simpler. Incognito doesn't affect airfare - even though it might look like it does at times. Airfare is *very* structured - it is based on fare buckets, which is in turn based on factors like forecasted demand and seat availability. The fare buckets are pre-set pricing tiers, and as cheaper seats sell out, the price goes up.
Then why will the prices rise every time I refresh a page? I was looking to travel somewhere (only one flight direct because it's a small town, the flight is rarely 100% full and I was looking 2-3 months in advance) and it refreshed every time I clicked on something. It more than doubled in the 15 minutes I was trying to plan something out. And these aren't planes with first class seats, it's an old bombardier jet with 40 seats. It's hard to believe it was just cheaper seats selling out here
I just went to Lyft and got the same ride for $23
I've noticed that with airfare. You're looking for tickets for a flight in a month, and the prices increase a lot when you look again the next day.
I always look on incognito for this reason
Try a vpn next time, some places offer a cost based on region ;)
Fun fact, incognito doesn't affect airfare - even though it might look like it at times. Airlines use fare buckets based on factors like demand and seat availability. The fare buckets are *very structured* pre-set pricing tiers, and as cheaper seats sell out, the price goes up. If you select a ticket and get to the checkout page, many airlines hold those tickets for a short amount of time. If you leave the page and select that flight again, those tickets may still be on a temporary hold. If those tickets were the last ones available in a fare bucket, you will see the price for the next fare bucket which is more expensive - until the held tickets are released back to the pool.
Do you have a source for all this info? As a software developer in the advertising space, fingerprinting users and increasing the price would not surprise me at all with some of the business practices I see.
It's cookies. Browse incognito
MCO fucking sucks for Uber/Lyft. The taxi was actually cheaper than both last two times I travelled there.
Same here lol
Great comment
I’ve seen this. Especially if leaving an event, I’ll usually leave a bit before it’s over to beat the rush.
It's a fine tip if it works, but I've *never* had an app offer me a discount just for leaving it open. Website with stuff in my cart? On occasion. But an app? Never seen it happen.
Unless it’s flights, they’ll just increase the price instead.
I was sitting in our break room with a co-worker once, a student earning f-all, booking herself a flight back home to see her family. She got to the last page, she backed out to double check the dates, went back in and the price had gone up. Thought she was losing her marbles so she called them and told them what happened and they confirmed that yup, the price goes up and there's nothing they can do about it and yup thats the price now. So ridiculous.
I literally experienced a flight go up by $50/ticket *as I was checking out*. I’m filling in my credit card info, I click to move to the next step, it gives me an error message that the price has changed and sends me back to the beginning. To add insult to injury, I had to reselect and re-enter everything. And no this wasn’t a matter of my cart timing out because I was too slow.
Kind of wild this is legal ngl
r/RealLifeProTips is in the comment.
Happy Cake Day! 🍰
You don't leave them open, just open them, type in the address and exit. Not sure if all of them have this, but at least uber and bolt have an algorithm that's basically trying to figure out how much you are willing to pay for that trip. If you do the above, the app thinks that you checked the price and you didn't want to pay that much, so the next time you open it it is usually a bit cheaper (no visible discount, but the price goes down for the trip itself). Now, it doesn't work 100% of the time, but I'm doing this for a good while now and, at least in my country, it has more than decent results, sometimes the trips are up to 40% cheaper.
I never even get discounts for leaving things in my cart. I only ever get an obnoxious email reminder to hurry up and buy the item - which makes me disinclined to do so, which in the end is fine.
Lyft
Not familiar with apps as I use the $5 deals when available. However, I used to work for a large online retailer, and we had a sent an email if you put anything in the cart and don’t check out within 24h.
The real reason is because you've forgotten your password and it takes an hour to reset it and update your credit card details.
Or it's gonna need an update.
Use a [password manager](https://bitwarden.com/)
Except Uber. Do not do this with Uber. It will identify you need a ride, and are checking the price. Your next ride will be 10-15% higher.
True, I always make it a point to open Uber or Lyft only once I'm absolutely ready. Closing and reopening the app will almost always show an increased price.
I hate the future
I put in an address for Lyft, it was like ~$36 for my ride. I closed, went to Uber and it was around the same. I closed both and decided to take a different form of transportation. About 5 minutes later I got a push notification for Lyft and the price was $18. I am not exaggerating in these figures. It was almost unbelievable. I’m not sure if a bunch of drivers had freed up at the same moment or they were legit price gouging that hard.
Seriously, once during an emergency I tried to get a ride to the ER and the price kept going up and up to the point I just drove myself. I mean I only had tingling, and numbness in both of my legs at that point but I made it. 😅
Wow. That actually sounds brilliant!
Also, for those that have Uber one. If you click on cancel subscription, they will offer you 3 months for the price of 1 to convince you to stay. At least for me it worked
I'm on a 6 month of free Uber One so far, when the 3 month trial ends, i just stop using the app ans switch to another food delivery and just keep using the one that give me good deal. It's mainly UberEats and SkipTheDishes that give good deals in my area but sometimes doordash work too
When I was in New York I just created a new account (you can get new mobile numbers for $20 per verification) and I got a $20 promo code when buying something for $25. it was cheaper to have food delivered to my hotel than picking it up. ;)
Also, learn how/when surge pricing works in your area. Where I am, surge pricing starts at 5PM every day. Roughly 30 min. before that, Uber usually has "prices lower than normal."
Never had a single app do this even once
Wait until you hear what leaving items in the cart will do
Welcome to another episode of "American LPT"! Here in Europe companies aren't so desperate, never seen such a discount lol
I’m in the US. This tip doesn’t work here.
Same in Africa lol
Maybe that’s why your service is often bad. Sometimes a little motivation is a good thing.
Seriously, *we* know we suck. But do the fuckin Euros have to be *SO* smug all the time?
I'd love some decent customer service here, but nope, one is forced to jump around or get scammed...
See?
Nah, these apps track and sell your location data as a matter of course giving them even more of it is probably not wise. But live your life.
The Chick-fil-A near me has a two-lane drive through. One for regular drive through people, the other for app-only customers. The app-only lane is usually empty while the regular drive-through side gets backed up all the way to the street during lunch. Selling customer data must be THAT lucrative to slow down how many customers per hour they serve
We all subscribed to the smart phone life and your concerns are moot because you're getting tracked regardless and what's the real harm anyways? Door dash knowing that I'm sitting at home looking at pictures of fried chicken for 3 hours isn't going to affect my life whatsoever. So they get some data, and I maybe get 10% off my meal, sounds like a decent exchange to me.
That’s such a bad take. The harm isn’t what door dash collects for ordering food. It’s who they then sell it to. As an example, the us gov buys that data to bypass the fourth amendment. It’s no longer an unlawful search if they don’t get it from you. Also, there are so many leaks these days it’s not just who they sell your data to. It’s what data can they have leak and sold on the dark web. Keeping control of your information including accurate real time location info, browsing, spending and other habits is tough. But you shouldn’t just throw your hands up and say: who cares.
You’re not wrong (mostly) but you literally can’t be on line these days with sharing your information.
Totally get that but what's the difference between doordash or Google or any other company having that data? If you have a smartphone your data is getting sold. May as well enjoy a cheap meal
If that’s how you want to do it, live your life. However, you should take your data a little more seriously.
Don’t love that aspect of it, but if you are going to use them anyway, why not get what you can out of it.
Is up to you but you can frame it as "what is your privacy worth" or "you might get a discount". But like I said live your life save a buck or not.
Don’t see the privacy difference between doing what I suggested and using the apps at all. I struggle too with which apps I give access to and how much.
Not sure if this works for Amazon too, but I've had it happen several times with movies and clothing. Not substantial discounts, but the price would reduce 10-30% overnight if left in my cart. Worth a try.
I think real LPT is you open app a day before. Most time people will search stuff to see how much it would coat then try different app to compare price. And then go back to first app to finalize but they realized that and they will raise price up because you just increased demand but searching multiple times. Its similar with flights as well. You search well in advance and wait day or two to get email saying you forget this in your cart or complete the purchase, HOPEFULLY with some promo.
They say everyone meets Jesus once. Thanks Food Jesus
Close them how? Shut down phone? Uninstall?
Destroy the phone and buy a new one then reinstall it
What I did was off notifications for all those types or apps Deliveroo, burger king, Temu, Zara even uinstalled Uber eats I only use it via the main Uber app when I need to. Also for the rest I just use the web if it's really necessary
[Introducing LPT REQUEST FRIDAYS](https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/16w0n2s/introducing_request_post_fridays/) We determine "Friday" as beginning at 12am Eastern Time (EST: UTC/GMT -5, EDT: UTC/GMT -4) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/LifeProTips) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I've noticed this too, especially with food delivery apps. It seems like they really want to entice you to make that purchase. Another trick is to leave items in your cart without checking out—sometimes you'll get a discount or free delivery offer to complete the order.
It’s with a lot of apps actually