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Recently, Huang Yuanpu, the founder of Yiou, called out to Liang Jianzhang, the co-founder of Ctrip, on his WeChat Moments, and a screenshot questioning Ctrip's "big data killing old customers" was circulated on the Internet.

The screenshots show that Huang Yuanpu claimed to be a "black diamond member" of Ctrip, the highest level. On July 18, when he used the Ctrip App to book a flight from Beijing to Astana on July 22, the price of the Air China flight ticket at 7 a.m. that day was 3,868 yuan. He clicked in to place an order, and after "filling in the information" and clicking "next", it was displayed that the ticket was "sold out", and then the price jumped out and refreshed to 4,408 yuan. Huang Yuanpu then checked the official channel of Air China, and the total price of the same flight was 4,328 yuan. In the end, he still completed the purchase on Ctrip at a price 80 yuan higher than the official channel of Air China. But after he booked the ticket, the price of the same flight on Ctrip quickly returned to 3,868 yuan.

In response to this situation, Huang Yuanpu also issued an official explanation from Ctrip, saying that air ticket prices are subject to change at any time by airlines based on demand. However, Huang Yuanpu randomly searched for several domestic flights and found that Ctrip's prices were generally higher than other platforms. For example, for a flight on July 22, Ctrip quoted 978 yuan, while Fliggy and Meituan quoted 965 yuan and 969 yuan respectively. Huang Yuanpu said that he understood that Ctrip did not have a price advantage on all flights, but he hoped that Ctrip could give a reasonable explanation.

On July 21, Red Star News consulted Ctrip customer service about this matter. The operator said that there is no such thing as "big data killing the familiar". "The ticket prices of approaching flights will fluctuate, and the low price actually displayed may not exist." The operator said that the reporter's questions will be recorded and responded to by relevant staff.

The reporter then received a reply from Ctrip’s public relations department saying that there was no big data targeting old customers. As for the reason for the price fluctuations, the other party said that “the prices of international air tickets will fluctuate, and the connected prices may also be in the cache,” which caused the price changes when returning to the page, “this is all normal.”

Red Star News reporter Luo Danni

Editor: Guo Zhuang, responsible editor: Guan Li