{"id":2245,"date":"2013-06-21T11:36:02","date_gmt":"2013-06-21T11:36:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gadgets.itwriting.com\/?p=2245"},"modified":"2013-06-21T11:36:02","modified_gmt":"2013-06-21T11:36:02","slug":"online-booking-with-national-express-prices-change-arbitrarily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/2245-online-booking-with-national-express-prices-change-arbitrarily.html","title":{"rendered":"Online booking with National Express: prices change arbitrarily"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I don\u2019t get this. You go online to book (or check prices) at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalexpress.com\/home.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">National Express<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/gadgets.itwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/image1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"image\" style=\"border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px\" border=\"0\" alt=\"image\" src=\"http:\/\/gadgets.itwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/image_thumb1.png\" width=\"404\" height=\"192\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Hmm, that 13.00 looks a good deal at \u00a39.00. But maybe I\u2019ll go earlier. Click <strong>Show Earlier Coaches<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/gadgets.itwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/image2.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"image\" style=\"border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px\" border=\"0\" alt=\"image\" src=\"http:\/\/gadgets.itwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/image_thumb2.png\" width=\"404\" height=\"197\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Oops! Not only are all the prices more for the earlier journeys, but the 13.00 is now \u00a310.70. What if I now go back with <strong>Show later coaches<\/strong>?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/gadgets.itwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/image3.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"image\" style=\"border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px\" border=\"0\" alt=\"image\" src=\"http:\/\/gadgets.itwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/image_thumb3.png\" width=\"404\" height=\"194\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Bad new \u2013 the 13.00 is still \u00a310.70. Good news \u2013 the 16.00 which was \u00a314.00 is now only \u00a312.70.<\/p>\n<p>What if I clear cookies, or revisit the site in a different browser?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/gadgets.itwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/image4.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"image\" style=\"border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px\" border=\"0\" alt=\"image\" src=\"http:\/\/gadgets.itwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/image_thumb4.png\" width=\"404\" height=\"182\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Yes, it\u2019s back to the old prices.<\/p>\n<p>My experience is that price reductions are rare. They almost always go up. And that simply closing the browser and starting a new session is not enough to make them go back down. In the worst case, a \u00a319.00 ticket went up to \u00a330.<\/p>\n<p>The behaviour is too consistent to be caused by other factors, like other customers booking or cancelling trips.<\/p>\n<p>A bug? Or does National Express like to play games with its customers?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I don\u2019t get this. You go online to book (or check prices) at National Express. Hmm, that 13.00 looks a good deal at \u00a39.00. But maybe I\u2019ll go earlier. Click Show Earlier Coaches. Oops! Not only are all the prices more for the earlier journeys, but the 13.00 is now \u00a310.70. What if I now &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/2245-online-booking-with-national-express-prices-change-arbitrarily.html\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Online booking with National Express: prices change arbitrarily<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1150],"tags":[1351,1366],"class_list":["post-2245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rants","tag-national-express","tag-online-booking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2245\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}