InvisibleHand Blog

Yes, that’s right – we’ve undertaken research which shows that Ryanair is not manipulating prices by using cookies.

Rumours allege that Ryanair uses browser cookies to unfairly push prices up. Specifically, it has been suggested that travellers who search for a flight, don’t buy it, and then carry out the same search later are given a higher price. A few users have reported that clearing their browser cookies appears to bring the price back down again.

We put this to the test in a two-day experiment, searching 52 routes in two different browsers and found no discrepancies – regardless of whether cookies were cleared or not.

What we did…

On day 1, using Firefox we ran 52 Ryanair flight searches on randomly selected routes, including return & one-way trips, and logged the prices.

On day 2, using Firefox we ran the same 52 searches and noted down the prices. However, we also carried out identical searches using Google Chrome – simultaneously with the Firefox searches. All cookies were cleared from Chrome after every search. Cookies were not cleared from Firefox at any point during the experiment.

If the price manipulation allegations were true, we would have expected to see price discrepancies in the results between Firefox and Chrome on day 2. What we actually saw were exactly the same prices on both browsers.

Is this definitive proof that Ryanair isn’t using cookies to manipulate prices? No. We only searched 52 routes from thousands of potential flight combinations, and we don’t have inside knowledge on how Ryanair sets its fares. But what we do know is that Ryanair changes its fares constantly using a sophisticated pricing model. Any number of factors could cause price fluctuations, but manipulation via browser cookies doesn’t appear to be one of them.

Ryanair the cookie monster? It’s an urban myth.

Update: Original source data is available here

We’re excited to announce that InvisibleHand is now able to help users get the cheapest flights – automatically. When you search for a flight at any popular travel site or airline, InvisibleHand will automatically search for cheaper or more convenient flights – on the day & route you specified. It’ll then show a discreet notification at the top of the page, with access to the flights available via a drop-down menu.

This could be particularly useful if you’re using a travel site which excludes some airlines, or if you’re searching an airline site which doesn’t allow it’s flight to be listed on the flight comparison websites. It’ll also help you if you enter a flight-related search into Google – all without leaving the page.

The flight-search feature is available immediately to new & existing InvisibleHand users in US & UK on Chrome, Safari & IE.

It’s also available on Firefox via InvisibleHand’s beta channel

InvisibleHand is back up-and-running. Apologies for any inconvenience that was caused by the outage in the US.

A server problem is causing an outage for InvisibleHand users in the US. If you’re using InvisibleHand on a US retailer, InvisibleHand won’t show a notification. We’re working on it and should have everything up-and-running within the next 20 – 30 minutes.

Users in the UK and Germany will be unaffected.

InvisibleHand is now available as a Safari extension. It lacks a few bells and whistles but otherwise should work just like other version for Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer. Please let us know if you notice anything unusual!

Hardly a week goes by without us receiving a stack of emails from Canadians asking for InvisibleHand to compare Canadian retailers. We have good news: InvisibleHand is coming to Canada!

We’ve already added some Canadian stores, but we’d like to add a few more before we officially launch there. If you’re a Canadian retailer (or know someone who is) then please contact us. We’ll be delighted to add your store to InvisibleHand.

Just send an email to info@getinvisiblehand.com and we’ll explain what to do.

Few days ago we’ve updated you about problem with version 2.0. It was a priority for us to fix the issue, and as a result version 2.1 was released on the day when we’ve discovered the problem. It took few more days to release new version 2.2 that replaces both of them.

We hope you’ll find new types of notifications introduced easier to notice, better looking and easier to navigate. You can now open products from alternative retailers in separate tabs if you wish. We’ve also added support for Yahoo! and Bing search engines apart from Google (and as usual, you have control over that setting on Options page).

We’ve also released versions with the same functionality for Google Chrome and Internet Explorer, so regardless of which browser you’re using, enjoy!

Several users reported that the latest upgrade of InvisibleHand for Firefox to version 2.0 has caused many websites to log out without a reason. This is due to a bug that we didn’t catch during testing. I am very sorry this has happened. I will make sure the next release of InvisibleHand for Firefox performs well.

If you are affected by this problem, please either downgrade to 1.8.2 (which is up on the Mozilla addons website right now) or upgrade to 2.1 when it is released (should happen today or tomorrow).

Again, I’m sorry this has happened and I’ll make changes to the development and testing process to make sure the bugs like that get caught early.

Evgeny Shadchnev
InvisibleHand developer

InvisibleHand is growing fast, with over 150,000 downloads, over $50 million of savings found, and plenty of new features to add. So we’re looking to a new add a brilliant new developer to our London-based team. You’ll need:

• Extensive Ruby development experience
• Experience building highly scalable service oriented architectures
• Agile development
• SQL database experience, using multimillion row datasets, preferably including MySQL
• Experience developing in Javascript
• Good understanding of HTML and CSS
• Strong quantitative and algorithmics a plus
• Windows development experience an advantage
• Browser extension development experience an advantage
• Retail application experience an advantage
• 3+ years of experience required

InvisibleHand is part of Forward Innovations. By joining InvisibleHand, you get all the perks which go along with being part of Forward Innovations, including:

• Fantastic working environment; flexible hours, casual dress-code, top spec computer, Aeron chairs, free fruit and treats everyday!
• Flexible benefits package; a contributory pension scheme and over 20 options including health insurance, child care support and gym membership.
• A multi-cultural team; we have team members from over 20 different countries. Our ‘pot luck’ evenings where people cook their national dish are legendary.
• A beautiful office; furnished with massage chairs, a pool table, foosball table, PS3, Wii and a draft beer machine.
• We like to have fun; regular company get-togethers and a spectacular Christmas party (we’ve taken the entire company to Las Vegas 3 times!)

Please send your details to jobs@forward.co.uk