Why has the price of my flight changed?

Chosen a flight and noticed the price has gone up? Want to know why? 💡

We display the prices provided to us by our suppliers: if the price goes up on Swile Travel, it means the ticket price has actually increased. It’s therefore not possible to book it at the original price.

🧐 Why does this happen?

It’s expensive for flight search engines to request real-time ticket prices from airlines. Since the start of the Covid crisis, they sometimes only do this a few times an hour.

If another user searched for the same flight as you 10 minutes ago, the search engine won’t ask for the price twice: it will give you the price it got 10 minutes ago, assuming it hasn’t changed.

If you’re reading this article, it means the price has indeed changed.

👩‍💻 Let’s look at an example

🕘 9:00am: Arthur wants to buy a Paris-Madrid ticket for 12 November. He searches on Swile Travel. Our system checks with the suppliers.

Supplier 1 (S1) needs to provide the price for Paris-Madrid trips on 12 November. But they don’t know the current price, so they check with the airlines that could fly Arthur. The airline replies: the 6:15am flight costs €123. S1 sends this price to Swile Travel, which shows it to Arthur, who confirms his booking.

🕥 9:30am: A group of tourists (not using Swile Travel) want to go to Madrid on 12 November. Through a travel agency, they book 40 seats on the 6:15am flight. The flight is now almost full. The price for a seat jumps from €123 to €500 (this is yield management).

🕙 10:00am: Claude, Arthur’s colleague, logs in to Swile Travel and searches for the same date. Our system asks our suppliers for prices (as usual).

S1 recognises a request it handled recently (Paris-Madrid, 12 November). It’s expensive for S1 to check the price with the airline again. Plus, the flight is still a while away, so the price is unlikely to have changed. Instead of updating the price, S1 tells Swile Travel the price is still €123.

Claude then selects this flight.

Swile Travel then asks the supplier: "We’re very likely to book this flight, can you give us the exact, real-time price?"

The supplier checks with the airline, who gives the new price: €500.

S1 tells Swile Travel the price is now €500. Our system then displays this to

Claude: unlucky, the price has gone up.

• Is there anything you can do to buy the ticket at the original €123 price? No.
• Can you find a better price than €500 elsewhere? No.
• Found the ticket for €123 on another site? You’ll probably be disappointed if you try to complete the booking: that €123 ticket no longer exists and isn’t available for sale. The people offering it are experiencing the same issue, and will eventually have to update the price with the airline and let you know it’s gone up.
• And finally, does Swile Business Travel use IP tracking, the dodgy practice of changing ticket prices depending on who’s looking? Absolutely not.