diff --git a/octavia_tempest_plugin/config.py b/octavia_tempest_plugin/config.py
index 5e09ba1..14007d1 100644
--- a/octavia_tempest_plugin/config.py
+++ b/octavia_tempest_plugin/config.py
@@ -184,6 +184,9 @@
     cfg.StrOpt('availability_zone',
                default=None,
                help='Availability zone to use for creating servers.'),
+    cfg.BoolOpt('test_reuse_connection', default=True,
+                help='Reuse TCP connections while testing LB with '
+                     'HTTP members (keep-alive).'),
 ]
 
 lb_feature_enabled_group = cfg.OptGroup(name='loadbalancer-feature-enabled',
diff --git a/octavia_tempest_plugin/tests/test_base.py b/octavia_tempest_plugin/tests/test_base.py
index 0e8a909..c8f7954 100644
--- a/octavia_tempest_plugin/tests/test_base.py
+++ b/octavia_tempest_plugin/tests/test_base.py
@@ -862,7 +862,9 @@
 
     def check_members_balanced(self, vip_address, traffic_member_count=2,
                                protocol='http', verify=True):
-        session = requests.Session()
+        handler = requests
+        if CONF.load_balancer.test_reuse_connection:
+            handler = requests.Session()
         response_counts = {}
 
         if ipaddress.ip_address(vip_address).version == 6:
@@ -873,7 +875,7 @@
         # Send a number requests to lb vip
         for i in range(20):
             try:
-                r = session.get('{0}://{1}'.format(protocol, vip_address),
+                r = handler.get('{0}://{1}'.format(protocol, vip_address),
                                 timeout=2, verify=verify)
 
                 if r.content in response_counts: