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How I “hacked” Kayak and booked a cheaper flight

josecasanova.com

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Re: How I “hacked” Kayak and booked a cheaper flight

#41

Post by calbear81 »

grecy wrote: post #38

Startup idea: A site that uses a bunch of VPNs in different countries to look for flights on the big search sites. Whichever is cheaper is presented as the one to buy. It could of course be extended beyond airline travel...

I like the idea. I think in general, you can get some things cheaper from retailers in other countries based on differences in the forex rate if the shipping + tax issues are not a problem. You wouldn't even usually need a VPN, just change the language/country settings.

The downside is that things may be cheaper because they weren't subject to some type of import tariff that you may be on the hook for from customs when it arrives in the US.

Re: How I “hacked” Kayak and booked a cheaper flight

#42

Post by bnzelener »

This has nothing to do with the VPN, unfortunately.

The price difference comes from Southwest's price being different than Delta's. Southwest flights wont show up when searching Kayak's USA site, but they do show up on international Kayak pages. It sounds like that's because they don't want to pay the brokerage fees for flights booked through the USA versions of Kayak/Expedia/Travelocity -- but I'm not sure of that.

Interesting experiment though!

Re: How I “hacked” Kayak and booked a cheaper flight

#43

Post by Rizz »

001sky wrote: post #10

The price descrimination that the airlines do is so opaque and manipulative, this is exactly why one needs to be cognizant of the technicals. We are really only a single logical step removed from a pretty bad place (read: racist/sexist/elitist, etc) with this teqnique to dynamic pricing and (essentially) ... front-running.[1] For example, we can charge black people more (based on zip-code demographics) to discourage…

>Imagine if the NYSE priced publicly traded equities in this manner?

Actually, stock exchanges like NYSE are accused of front-running, the SEC has been investigating for a few years already.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000087239639044398920... Or if you prefer a 50 minute documentary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFQJNeQDDHA

Re: How I “hacked” Kayak and booked a cheaper flight

#44

Post by Glan1984 »

hartator wrote: post #32

> (BTW, I use the VPN to mask my internet traffic… sorry NSA) Unfortunately, that's not true and will even draw attention. This XKeyScore slide is crazy: http://hothardware.com/newsimages/Item26839/Xkeyscore1.jpg

XkeyScore can decrypt my tunneled connection with aes-256, sha256? I knew the nsa was good but not that good... where does it say it decrypts the vpn tunnels of any kind on the slide though I'm curious -_-

Re: How I “hacked” Kayak and booked a cheaper flight

#45

Post by veemjeem »

blazespin wrote: post #27

I've often hacked Kayak by booking flights to other destinations with a stopover at the place I want to go. It's bizarre, but yes, they're sometimes cheaper. "opaque and manipulative" indeed.

I wonder if they're doing price elasticity experiments? You could get a slightly cheaper price by getting a different cookie set.

Re: How I “hacked” Kayak and booked a cheaper flight

#46

Post by Glan1984 »

eli wrote: post #33
TillE wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BTGuard is based in Canada and they have a strict policy of not keeping logs. What's your point?

Well, for one thing, you've taken your domestic internet traffic -- which has legal protections against many types of NSA intrusion -- and traded it for foreign traffic which has virtually no protection.

ok so use a vpn located in america. Boom.

Re: How I “hacked” Kayak and booked a cheaper flight

#47

Post by gcb0 »

kylec wrote: post #39
grecy wrote: post #38

Startup idea: A site that uses a bunch of VPNs in different countries to look for flights on the big search sites. Whichever is cheaper is presented as the one to buy. It could of course be extended beyond airline travel...

Be prepared to be blocked. Each search on a site like Kayak costs money, and if a bunch of searches are being done automatically it will lower the conversion rate, which meta-search sites and their partners watch closely and care deeply about.

I doubt a search a day would even show on the radar

Re: How I “hacked” Kayak and booked a cheaper flight

#48

Post by cynwoody »

bnzelener wrote: post #42

This has nothing to do with the VPN, unfortunately. The price difference comes from Southwest's price being different than Delta's. Southwest flights wont show up when searching Kayak's USA site, but they do show up on international Kayak pages. It sounds like that's because they don't want to pay the brokerage fees for flights booked through the USA versions of Kayak/Expedia/Travelocity -- but I'm not sure of that.…

I just tried BOS-DEN nonstop 31 Jan to 7 Feb through the UK† and Canada††. Southwest came in cheapest on both searches. As has been noted, Southwest did not appear in the same search using www.kayak.com.

I was coming from a US IP. I wonder, if I had been coming from a British or Canadian IP, if I would have been redirected to the corresponding site.

†http://www.kayak.co.uk/flights/BOS-DEN/2014-01-31/2014-02-07

††http://www.ca.kayak.com/flights/BOS-DEN/2014-01-31/2014-02-0...

Re: How I “hacked” Kayak and booked a cheaper flight

#49

Post by eli »

Glan1984 wrote: post #44
hartator wrote: post #32

> (BTW, I use the VPN to mask my internet traffic… sorry NSA) Unfortunately, that's not true and will even draw attention. This XKeyScore slide is crazy: http://hothardware.com/newsimages/Item26839/Xkeyscore1.jpg

XkeyScore can decrypt my tunneled connection with aes-256, sha256? I knew the nsa was good but not that good... where does it say it decrypts the vpn tunnels of any kind on the slide though I'm curious -_-

Is your goal to be anonymous on your web? Because the traffic isn't encrypted when it leaves the VPN and your browser cookies (or various apps phoning home) will make your identity obvious.

Re: How I “hacked” Kayak and booked a cheaper flight

#50

Post by Glan1984 »

eli wrote: post #49
Glan1984 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

XkeyScore can decrypt my tunneled connection with aes-256, sha256? I knew the nsa was good but not that good... where does it say it decrypts the vpn tunnels of any kind on the slide though I'm curious -_-

Is your goal to be anonymous on your web? Because the traffic isn't encrypted when it leaves the VPN and your browser cookies (or various apps phoning home) will make your identity obvious.

No my goal is simply to evade the NSA wiretaps as well as my ISP who has recently started messing up my internet connection whenever I torrent, so I vpn overseas and torrent. But yes you are correct, in order to browse privately you should really use tails or something along with vpn and avoid say logging into facebook or anything linked to your identity.
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