Online creators are giving their followers some unusual advice to help lower their flight ticket prices: head to the public library.
Over the past few days, multiple viral posts have sprung up wherein creators claim that they were able to score major savings on flights (up to thousands of dollars, in one case) by booking their tickets on a public library computer rather than their own personal devices.
“Yeah, so I just tried this, and it worked for me,” creator Ellyce Fullmore told her followers in an Instagram video posted on May 16, which now has nearly 250,000 likes. She added, “We got a flight for $500 cheaper from booking on the library computer. What in the conspiracy theory is going on here?”
The implication behind these videos—that airline companies are using individuals’ search history and cookies to implement personalized dynamic pricing—has been widely disputed by experts. Several airlines, including Delta Air Lines and JetBlue Airways, have openly denied using personal data to inform prices.
Still, the trend points to consumers’ increasing distrust of airline companies, which have spent the past several years maximizing their profits through ancillary fees.
The “public library hack” takes off
The public library airline hack seems to trace back to an Instagram reel by creator @talia_likeitis, who describes herself as a “homesteader” and has previously posted conspiracy content denying the legitimacy of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In her video, Talia claims that travel agencies and data brokers “aggregate your data from hundreds of sources” and then “sell it to airlines to help them figure out what you’re WILLING to pay.”
The content seems to have hit the mainstream, with the video currently sitting around 640,000 likes (well above the account’s typical performance).
In addition to Fullmore’s stitch of Talia’s original video, the “public library hack” is also picking up steam on other platforms, like Threads and X.
One Threads post reading, “Quick hack for you guys: Go to the public library and book your flights on their computer” currently has more than 13,000 likes, while a tweet with the exact same wording has picked up more than 200,000 likes.
Across the comments of these posts, most responders seem generally supportive, although some express hesitancy to input their personal data, like credit card information, on a public computer.
“[I’m] wondering if you could get the same result if you use the VPN at home,” one commenter on Talia’s original post said.
On Fullmore’s stitch, another user added, “What!!!! We shouldn’t have to jump through these hoops lol.”
A myth debunked
The idea that airline companies are using your cookies and browser history to jack up prices is a concept that’s been broadly disputed by experts in the field.
In an April article for Travel + Leisure, experts including Katy Nastro, a spokesperson for the flight price tracker Going; Sophia Lin, director of product management for travel and local at Google Search; and Jesse Neugarten, founder of the travel site Dollar Flight Club, agreed that the idea that airlines or booking sites track your searches to hike prices is a persistent myth.
“There is a common misconception that repeated search behavior will lead to not just a different, but a higher outcome,” Nastro said. “There is no credible data source that suggests repeated searching is tracked and therefore manipulated to higher pricing.”
Neugarten explained that airline pricing is indeed dynamic, but it’s based on factors like “seat inventory, booking trends, time to departure, competitor pricing, and external factors like weather or fuel costs,” not individuals’ personal data—which explains why prices might fluctuate over time.
Reached for comment, Nastro suggested to Fast Company via email that the practice of, say, visiting a library may have emerged as a “hack” in the public consciousness because it randomly works on occasion through luck of the draw.
“Every time we see airfares get pricey, the ‘hacks’ come out,” Nastro says.
According to the Consumer Price Index, she notes, airfare is currently 20% higher year-over-year, while domestic fares alone are 18% year based on Going’s data.
“Whether there is validity to any of this depends on who scored a cheap flight using it,” Nastro says. “What matters more is timing, and anyone booking now during this costly time is unfortunately destined for a higher price tag.”
So, what’s really going on here?
It’s not exactly surprising that consumers are quick to accept theories like the public library hack, as discussion around the ethics of dynamic airline pricing has reached a boiling point in recent years.
In 2024, a Senate report found that from 2018 to 2023, five major and low-cost airlines brought in $12.4 billion in revenue from seat fees, a trend they blamed in part on dynamic pricing and dark patterns.
And late last year, Delta revealed that it’s testing using AI algorithms to help price domestic flights via a collaboration with Israel-based software startup Fetcherr.
In a letter to senators at the time, Delta stated that it is not “using, and [does not] intend to use, AI for ‘individualized’ pricing or ‘surveillance’ pricing, leveraging consumer-specific personal data, such as sensitive personal circumstances or prior purchasing activity to set individualized prices.”
Still, the move sparked conversation around whether AI-powered dynamic pricing could lead to a slippery slope for consumers.
Most recently, JetBlue has become embroiled in a lawsuit claiming that the company is collecting customers’ personal data without their consent and using it to set ticket prices.
Per court documents filed on April 22, the company responded to a customer on X who was struggling to purchase a ticket for a funeral with the suggestion, “Try clearing your cache and cookies or booking with an incognito window”—appearing to suggest that the company was indeed collecting personal data.
That tweet has since been deleted.
In a statement to CBS News, JetBlue attributed the tweet to the mistake of a single crew member.
“JetBlue does not use personal information or web browsing history to set individual pricing,” the carrier said in the statement.
Whether or not the public library hack actually works, its traction on social media demonstrates that consumer trust in air travel pricing strategies is at an all-time low—and airlines only have themselves to blame.