Dynamic pricing – the ability by airlines to change ticket prices by hundreds of dollars instantly- is the darling of the airline industry.

Last week we told you this happens constantly and documented it.

This week we are going a step further – providing you with ways to try and ensure that you can minimize gouging.

And we look at another industry that gouges you when you travel – the hotel sector.

But first let’s look at what you can do avoid price gouging in the airline industry.

Two things are crucial – buying your ticket at the right time and using the right search engine.

The best one in both instances is Google Flights.

Google Flights can help you track prices for selected flights and destinations.

Here is what you need to do:

Go to Google Flights.

At the top, choose the number of stops, cabin class, and how many tickets you need.

Choose your departure airport and destination.

To track prices for this route, turn on Track prices.

You can track prices for your searched dates or, if your travel dates are flexible, “Any dates.”

Optional: To track prices for a specific flight, choose your flights, then turn on Track prices.

When you track “Any dates,” you get an email when the route’s minimum price drops significantly over a month. If there isn’t a large enough price drop, you get a regular email with the best available flight prices.

Google Flights will check daily and let you know about significant price changes.

But Google Flights goes further:

It finds the cheapest days to fly

The Date grid and Price graph make it easy to see the best flight deals

See the whole picture with price insights

Price history and trend data show you when to book to get the best price on your flight

Get smart insights about flight prices

Real-time insights can tell you if a fare is lower or higher than usual, and if the fare you’re seeing is a good price. So, you don’t have to worry about paying too much for a flight or missing out on the cheapest time to book. On some routes, you might also see historical data that helps you better understand how flight prices vary over time.

Trying to get a deal for your hotel requires a few steps.

1. Your best is to book 15 days ahead of the time you want your hotel room. And forget that booking on certain days will get you a deal. It does not work.
2. You can also book several months ahead of time, but that requires a bit of work, checking prices twice a week and comparing them with your booked price. Bu make sure that you can change your booking. The best option is when your credit card option is that it does not get charged until one or two days before your original booking.
3. Compare prices of those on a booking search engine with those the hotel offers. More than often hotels offer a 10 per cent discount when you book with them directly or call the hotel directly and ask what’s your best price?
4. Install a Free VPN (virtual private network) on your computer – a software program that prevents search engines from tracking you. But why is that important. Most hotel and travel booking engines use “ cookies” keep track of how many times and where you have searched for a room. So let’s illustrate this. Using a search engine you look for a room and the quote you get is $400 a night. So a few days later you go back to the same search engine and the quote is $425 a night. Why, dynamic pricing is at work and a few days later it rises to $435. So you say to yourself my original deal of $400 is a good one, when in fact the price has gone down to $350. The reason for you not knowing the new low price of $350 is simple – cookies kept tabs on you and only showed you the original booked price of $400. A VPN prevents all that cookie tracking.