B2B Pricing Accuracy
This following section is meant to provide an overview of why pricing inaccuracies occur in the industry, why it is difficult to completely eradicate them, what Skyscanner is doing to improve them, and what actions you, as a Partner, can take to flag and avoid inaccuracies.
Why do Pricing Inaccuracies occur
There is a complex distribution ecosystem in the Flights industry, where caching occurs across different layers. Each layer of caching in the flights supply chain can potentially lead to downstream inaccuracies in terms of pricing.
Let us take the example of an OTA. Let’s assume that this OTA receives its supply from multiple GDSs – to improve response speed and decrease the cost of data transfer, each GDS decides to provide offers/pricing to this OTA via caching. Then, the OTA itself, which provides offers/pricing to Skyscanner, decides, for the same reasons (speed & cost) to also use caching when it comes to data transfers with Skyscanner. Looking at the data supply chain that results from this, we can see that there are layers of complexity and caching which all have the potential to cause inaccuracies the further away we move from the original source of the offers.
Accuracy (Speed/Cost Trade-Offs)
When it comes to Pricing Accuracy, Speed and Cost are the 2 main components that come into the equation, with each affecting the results differently:
- High Accuracy = Low Speed
- High Speed = Low Accuracy
- High Accuracy + High Speed = High Costs
In the complex flight distribution ecosystem, having high accuracy, at high speed, while maintaining costs under control is virtually impossible, and that is why companies must find an optimal balance between these components.
Pricing Inaccuracies within Skyscanner
Skyscanner observes prices shown on the Skyscanner site versus the prices shown on our Supply Partners’ sites, for the same itineraries. A pricing inaccuracy is observed/noted when internally determined metrics are outside what is a normal range.
Skyscanner Policies & Initiatives to improve Accuracy
Skyscanner aims at having Pricing Inaccuracies occur on less than 5% of all Redirects to Supply Partners. To reach that goal, Skyscanner has guidelines and rules for its Supply Partners, who are required to maintain inaccuracy levels at a maximum of 5%.
Affiliate/Partner Preventions & Actions
As an Affiliate, there are 2 things that you can do to improve the Price Accuracy you are seeing.
- Itinerary Refresh API: if you are a B2B API Affiliate, for maximum accuracy, please implement the Itinerary Refresh within the Flights Live Prices API
- Report Price Inaccuracies: if you notice any inaccurate prices on your end, please raise them with us when they are identified; the more information, the better, and we will then flag it with our Supply Partners:
- Logs, video recording or screenshots of the inaccurate prices you’re seeing
- Time and Date the Price Inaccuracy was identified
- Market that the search was performed in
- Any other contextual information
If you have any questions on the above, or require more information on the topic, please reach out to your Skyscanner Account Manager or contact us at partners@skyscanner.net