Does Incognito Mode Actually Get You Cheaper Flights?
Consumer Reports tested the incognito-mode flight myth directly back in 2016, running 372 side-by-side searches on nine booking sites, and cookies only made a difference on 42 of them. Readers ask TravelScanner.AI some version of "should I search in incognito?" almost every week, so instead of repeating the folklore, we went back to the primary data. The short answer is simple. Opening a private window does not get you a cheaper fare, and in the rare cases where the price actually differed, the cookie-free browser was slightly more often the pricier one, not the cheaper one. What Consumer Reports Actually Found When It Tested the Myth The 2016 test is still the only controlled, publicly documented experiment most articles on this topic cite, and it's worth reading exactly what it found rather than the retelling. Testers ran four sets of simultaneous searches across five domestic routes and nine booking sites, pairing one browser with a full search history against...