Alright, a workaround. Clearing cookies didn’t work. Switching browsers didn’t work. What did work was clearing cookies and then sending my traffic through a SOCKS proxy server on the west coast. After doing so I was able to get the fare that had been quoted to me, then snapped away.

The conspiracy-minded (e.g. me) will conclude that Virgin America keeps a list of IP addresses and, based on your fare-browsing activity, gradually increases prices in an effort to make you snap up a ticket before it gets any more expensive.

The more sane among you will recognize that the West coast is three hours behind me, and that the fare increase may be related to the time of day at which I was shopping.

Either way, jerking around your users in this manner — the way the entire airline industry does — is sleazy behavior. If you’re booking airfare and can send your packets through a western time zone, I recommend doing so.

Booking a flight on Virgin America: I’m about to confirm and pay. Would I like to join their loyalty program, which doesn’t yet exist but which someday may provide some meager membership benefits before the airline inevitably goes bankrupt or is absorbed by a larger carrier? Sure, why not.

I’ll tell you why not: because as soon as I’m done I’ll be told that my previously locked-in reservation has expired, that making the same one will now cost 33% more, and I’ll get a busy signal when I call their 800 number to complain. Go to hell, Branson.

On OS X, at least, it’s really nice! My only complaint so far: the address bar has gotten a little too smart for its own good, and introduces a noticeable lag when you hammer a URL or search query into it with sufficient ferocity. But Firebug (1.1 beta), the Web Developer Toolbar and Greasemonkey all seem to have already been updated for the new version, so I suppose I should be counting my blessings. As soon as Tamper Data and Live HTTP Headers get ported over I think I can safely delete version 2.

UPDATE: And, naturally, as soon as I try out beta 4, beta 5 is released. Well, presumably it’s nicer still.