Dynamic pricing, and what to do about it
What dynamic pricing is, where the law now stands on hidden fees and false urgency, and what to do when prices keep changing. A TOSE guide.
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The price that changes while you watch has become one of modern shopping’s small anxieties. One evening a flight costs one amount; the next morning it costs another, and the suspicion creeps in that the change was aimed at you personally. It usually was not, and the difference between what is actually happening and what people fear is worth setting out, because the two call for different responses.
Dynamic pricing means prices changing rapidly and frequently in response to demand and other market conditions. It is common in air travel, hotels and ride-hailing, and is also used in parts of live entertainment. It is not unlawful in itself: what matters legally is how it is used and whether you are given the information you need to make an informed decision.
Nor is dynamic pricing simply a mechanism for charging more. Where you can change your timing and genuine alternatives exist, fluctuating prices can also reveal cheaper options: the quieter midweek flight, for example, or the shoulder-season hotel room. It becomes more concerning where there is no meaningful alternative, the mechanism is opaque, or the fear of a sudden increase pushes you into making a decision too quickly.
Personalised pricing is different. This is where a price is set or varied for an individual using information about that person or their behaviour. Despite persistent suspicion, UK regulators have historically found limited evidence of online retailers using personalised advertised prices on a significant scale.
That matters when considering one popular piece of shopping folklore: using incognito mode is not a reliable way to secure a lower price. It may change what a website remembers about your browsing session, but there is little evidence that simply searching twice for an ordinary product causes a retailer to increase the advertised price specifically for you.
If a price changes, the reason may instead be demand, availability, timing or the particular offer being shown. From the outside, however, it is not always possible to tell exactly what caused the change.
Where the law has genuinely changed is in how prices and urgency are presented. Since 6 April 2025, UK consumer law has expressly prohibited drip pricing involving unavoidable charges. Where a trader presents a product alongside a price, that price information must include the mandatory fees, taxes and charges the customer will have to pay. Where part of the total genuinely cannot be calculated in advance, the trader must instead provide enough information for the consumer to understand how that element will be calculated.
False urgency is prohibited too: a countdown that claims an offer is ending but simply starts again, for example, or a scarcity warning that is not true. A genuine deadline or an accurate stock message is different.
These rules have teeth. The Competition and Markets Authority can now enforce consumer law directly, including through financial penalties and orders requiring money to be returned to consumers. In the first year of its new direct enforcement powers, from April 2025 to April 2026, the CMA opened investigations into 14 businesses, settled with two, ordered £760,000 in refunds and imposed £4.7 million in fines.
One of the clearest early examples concerned AA Driving School and BSM. The CMA found that customers were not shown the full upfront price because a mandatory £3 booking fee was added later in the booking process. In April 2026, it ordered refunds for affected customers and imposed a £4.2 million fine on the AA.
Why prices change
It helps to understand what is happening on the other side of the screen, because the mechanism explains which responses are actually useful.
In travel, the same seat or room may be offered at different prices as demand, remaining capacity and the date of travel or stay change. Airlines commonly divide availability across different fare levels, while hotels may adjust rates as rooms sell or booking patterns shift.
That is why prices can move in steps rather than following a smooth upward or downward line, and why the cost of the same journey can fall as well as rise when demand changes. Refreshing the page may reveal a different price, but the change itself does not tell you what caused it.
Perishability is the other half of the equation. A hotel room left empty for the night earns nothing, and an unsold airline seat cannot be stored and sold the following day. As the date approaches, the seller’s incentive changes.
That is the genuine basis of both the last-minute bargain and the last-minute penalty. If demand is weak, prices may fall to fill otherwise empty capacity. If demand is strong, prices may rise sharply as the remaining availability disappears.
Retail behaves differently. Physical stock does not usually become worthless at a fixed moment, so much retail price movement follows promotional cycles rather than minute-by-minute demand pricing: seasons end, ranges are cleared, sales begin and successor products arrive.
The practical consequence is that patience works differently in the two settings. Waiting to buy a coat is often a bet on the retail calendar, which is relatively predictable. Waiting to buy a flight is a bet on how quickly other people book, which is not.
Drip pricing, and what the law requires
The behaviour addressed by the current price-transparency rules is often referred to as drip pricing: a headline price is shown and additional charges appear as the customer moves through the transaction.
Drip pricing can involve optional as well as mandatory extras, but the key legal distinction is whether a charge is unavoidable. Mandatory charges must be reflected in the price information given to the consumer rather than being revealed only at a later stage.
That gives shoppers a useful test. If a charge is unavoidable for everyone making that purchase, it should normally already be reflected in the price you are shown. A compulsory booking fee applied to every transaction is one example.
An optional extra is different. If you can genuinely choose not to buy a particular add-on — optional insurance, for example, or another separately selected extra — its cost does not have to be incorporated into the headline price of the underlying product in the same way.
Where an unavoidable element genuinely cannot be calculated in advance, the trader should explain how it will be worked out rather than simply presenting an unexplained charge at the end.
The same principle applies to urgency. A deadline that is real, and a stock count that is accurate, are ordinary pieces of commercial information. A timer that tells you an offer is ending when the same offer simply continues and the timer begins again is different.
Treat urgency messages as claims to assess rather than instructions to obey. That small shift in mindset removes much of their power.
What to do when prices keep changing
Start by knowing the usual price. Watch an item over time, or use a reliable price-history tool for the retailer in question, so that you can recognise a genuine reduction when it appears.
Price-history tools tend to be more useful for stable retail catalogues than for travel, where inventory and fare availability can change continuously.
Compare elsewhere. Open a second tab and check the same or an equivalent product with another retailer or provider. Comparison puts a changing price back into context and makes it easier to judge whether what you are seeing is genuinely competitive.
For travel, flexibility is a more dependable way to save than searching for a supposed universal best day to book. Prices respond to demand, remaining capacity, fare availability and how close the date of travel has become. Useful savings are therefore more likely to come from testing different dates, airports or departure times than from assuming that booking on a particular weekday will always be cheaper.
And keep a record of what you were shown. If a price turns out to have concealed a mandatory charge, a screenshot of the original price and the later checkout total can be far more useful than trying to reconstruct the journey afterwards.
If you think a price was misleading
The first step is usually to contact the trader in writing. Set out clearly what you were shown, what you were ultimately charged and why you believe the way the price was presented was misleading.
For individual consumer problems in England and Wales, Citizens Advice can provide guidance and can pass reports to Trading Standards where appropriate. Trading Standards uses those reports to identify businesses or practices that may require investigation.
The Competition and Markets Authority also accepts information about suspected breaches of consumer law and wider market problems, but it does not normally step in to resolve an individual customer’s dispute. Its role is principally to take enforcement action where a practice may affect consumers more broadly.
None of this promises to outwit an algorithm, and it is better to be clear about that. Shopping folklore offers uncertainty; a verified discount code and eligible cashback offer savings with terms that can be checked.
The rest is about understanding what is actually happening, ignoring the myths and knowing that hidden mandatory fees and manufactured urgency now face much clearer rules.
