Monopoly money goes up while you wait!

You log on to a shopping website and search for the classic board game Monopoly.

It will make the perfect Christmas present for a child in your family and, given the uncertain financial situation, the sooner they learn how to manage money the better.

It costs €25 — marked down, so the website tells you, from €30. You think about it for 10 minutes, wondering whether Cluedo would be better.

But when you refresh the page, finally aiming to buy, what’s this? Now Monopoly costs €30!

Worse, the Ugg slippers you’d been eyeing up for your mother have gone up from €80 to €95. And the VR headset you reckon the teenager would love — a Meta Quest 2 — has soared from €350 to €460.

Welcome to the brave new world of ‘surge’ or ‘dynamic’ pricing.

It’s one where there is no fixed price for anything. It all depends on algorithms, timing and how badly you – and everyone else – want what’s on offer.

We’re already familiar with the idea of holidays costing more in August when the schools are out, but this takes that concept to a whole new level.

Concert tickets, utilities, music and TV streaming, taxis, phone contracts, even a pint of beer in a pub — with ‘surge pricing’ you’ll rarely pay the same amount twice.

Now many online shops are rushing to join the likes of Amazon and employing sophisticated tech to hike prices at times of heavy demand – such as the runup to Christmas. Consumers have clocked the trend, and don’t like it. A recent survey by UK bank Barclays revealed that 47% of respondents had noticed retailers using surge pricing and

that 32% had experienced pubs and bars raising the price of food and drink at peak times (in the UK).

Earlier this year, for example, the Slug & Lettuce chain (yes, that’s a real name) announced a pint will cost an extra 20p at times of high demand.

You may think dynamic pricing could never happen in Irish pubs but what about ‘happy hour’ and other price-oriented promos? And we told you before how some pubs in Dublin’s Temple Bar charge more for their already pricey pints once the clock strikes midnight.

We also saw dynamic pricing dramatically highlighted with concert ticket prices earlier this year. Once the cheapest seats for Taylor Swift and Coldplay sold (for €100!), prices rocketed as high as €1,000.

And anyone buying from the likes of Amazon will find that dynamic pricing bites as we get closer to Christmas

The US has long used dynamic pricing but European retailers are catching up.

More than half of those in Nordic countries use it, while retailers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland are not far behind. The UK is still at ‘only’ 15% to 20%, but that’s one in every five purchases, which will undoubtedly rise.

So get your Christmas shopping orders in early before those pesky algorithims smell your fear!