Why You Should Use a VPN When Booking a Hotel

VPNs, or virtual private networks, can help you watch international Netflix , hide your activity from your employer, and protect your online privacy. Tech writer Brendan Heath previously explained the importance of using a VPN when visiting hotels , but new data suggests that you should also use one when booking.

What else is a VPN?

In case you need a refresher, as Brendan explained:

VPNs hide personal information such as your IP address, location, and online browsing data from anyone who tracks you online. This includes your ISP, advertisers, websites, governments, and even other private users on the same networks. VPNs pass your connection through proxy servers located in other countries that mask your true location, and it is through these proxy connections that you can trick websites and streaming apps into thinking you live in another part of the world.

As a side note: VPNs are legal in the US, but you should always check your local laws if that’s a concern for you.

How to Use a VPN for Cheaper Hotels

Essentially, you can fool a hotel booking website into thinking you are in a lower price location. Using dynamic pricing is the standard in the travel industry, and according to LinkedIn , location is one of the many factors that influence prices and one of the few you can control.

To get cheaper rates, you essentially need to use a VPN and start with trial and error. When it comes to flights, ExpressVPN recommends trying to look like you’re in a smaller or less affluent country, and the same logic can be applied to hotels: if a hotel website looks up your IP address to determine your price, you might get lower rates from a cheaper IP address than, say, New York.

Here are a few more steps that can improve your chances of finding a cheaper deal:

• Clear your cookies : Reddit users were more able to find flight deals when they cleared their cookies. This can work for hotels as well.
• Use an incognito tab : The fewer cookies that track your activity, the better your search can turn out.
• Keep changing VPN location to see new prices
• Try Different Booking Sites : Each hotel booking site will have its own terms and conditions and dynamic pricing that they follow. Turn it on and see what works for you. Try Hotels.com, Expedia, Priceline, Hotwire, Tripadvisor and so on.
• Use virtual debit cards if you are connected to an international server . If you are booking from an international server, you may encounter local billing address requirements . You can avoid this by using virtual debit cards .

Are hotels really cheaper with a VPN?

As Mashable found out , VPNs are actually better for finding hotel deals than they are for flights. They checked a hotel booking in Lisbon, Portugal for seven days with Trivago and found a Ramada by Wyndham Lisbon for $130 per night with a VPN set up for Portugal. The same search with the US VPN set turned up $123 per night. Similarly, a hotel in Mexico City for seven nights with a VPN set to Mexico City showed that it would cost $319 per night, but when booking the same hotel with a VPN set to the US, the price dropped to $213 per night.

Even though the US has lower rates for these international hotels, it certainly doesn’t mean that the US is the best place to book hotels. There is no silver bullet, but time, patience and a VPN should help.

Best Overall VPNs

Many VPN companies claim that using their services can save you money when booking flights, hotels, and car rentals, but there is no single VPN that is “best” for saving money on travel sites. However, some will be better at targeting more specific locations than others (some will only target a country while others may target states or cities) and this can come in handy if you want to target specific locations. which you think will give you a cheaper deal.

Here are some of the best VPNs:

• ExpressVPN costs $6.67 per month (with current annual agreement and three free months).
• NordVPN costs $3.99 per month (plus three free months on the current agreement).
• CyberGhost VPN costs $12.99 per month (or 26 months for $2.19 per month with their current agreement).
• TunnelBear VPN costs $9.99/month (or $4.17/month for two years).