How to Book Hotels Cheap With a VPN

A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is a powerful privacy tool that encrypts your internet connection, preventing local networks and ISPs from tracking your online activities. It also stops websites from logging your IP address and helps protect against hackers on public wifi. But did you know that you can also use a VPN to book hotels cheaper?

When you connect to a VPN server, the websites you visit only see the VPN server’s IP address, not your original one. The best VPNs offer a variety of servers worldwide, allowing you to “spoof” your IP address to many different locations. Most VPN users leverage this capability to access regional TV platforms and streaming catalogs, but other valuable use cases exist.

Changing your IP address lets you access regional search engine results and region-locked services such as local stores, game servers, internet banking, and government portals. Best of all, you can use a VPN for traveling, to book hotels, flights, and potentially venue tickets cheaper.

Keep reading to learn why a VPN can help you unlock cheaper prices and discover how to book hotels cheaper with a VPN.

Why do I need a VPN to make cheaper hotel bookings?

When you visit sites like Booking.com, Expedia, Hotels.com, Agoda, Priceline, Travelocity, and Trivago, those sites monitor your IP address and record the type of hotel or flight queries you make. They use this data for profiling purposes and to encourage quicker bookings.

How booking sites use your data

Imagine the following scenario:

You are planning to visit an old friend in Barcelona. You launch your browser and use Booking.com to search for a hotel located close to your friend’s house. You find a few hotels and note the prices of your favorite three options.

Next, you decide to check whether you can get a better deal on Expedia. Again, you search for hotels near your friend’s house and note the best options.

After checking a few other websites, you have a complete list of various hotels and prices, and you are happy that you know which sites and hotels are most competitive.

Doing all this research has taken quite a long time, and you don’t feel like making a decision immediately. You close your browser and shut down your computer, deciding it is better to sleep on it overnight and make the booking the next day.

The price increase dilemma

The following day, you turn on your computer and return to Booking.com. You search for the hotel you want to book, and, to your horror, the price has increased. You look at your list of hotel options and realize that your favorite hotel is no longer the best deal.

Unhappily, you scan your list for your second favorite hotel. You head over to Trivago to make the booking, but when the hotel appears, the booking cost has also increased. “This is impossible,” you say aloud, becoming angry and frustrated.

The role of IP address profiling

Unfortunately, this type of online booking experience is extremely commonplace. The reason for the increasing hotel costs is your IP address and the profiling that it allows booking sites to carry out.

Using a VPN for cheaper hotel bookings can prevent these price hikes by masking your IP address, making it appear as if you are a new visitor each time you search. Keep reading to learn how this works.

How does IP address tracking affect hotel costs?

When you visit a hotel booking website, it can detect your IP address and record your searches. Booking sites are designed to make decisions automatically, encouraging users to book quickly while maximizing the site’s profit.

Dynamic pricing strategies

In the scenario described above, the consumer returns to the booking website and searches for the same hotels twice. This allows the booking website to determine two things:

• The visitor is searching for a hotel in a specific location and for specific dates.
• The visitor is undecided and needs to be encouraged to make a booking as quickly as possible.

How automated decisions increase costs

These automated decisions drive increasing hotel costs through dynamic pricing. This type of dynamic pricing is exploited to:

• Pinpoint consumers who are seriously looking for a hotel.
• Create a sense of urgency, encouraging consumers to book immediately.

Geographical price discrimination

A user’s IP address may also affect hotel costs in other ways. For example, if someone is booking from a country with less spending power, the website may show them lower prices. Conversely, the website will quote the highest prices available if the visitor’s IP address registers in an affluent country, state, city, or borough.

Naturally, the effects of dynamic pricing can be enough to drive anybody mad – which is why, with a bit of knowledge, time, and effort, a VPN can become your ticket to not only cheaper booking costs but also freedom from the frustration of price gouging.

How can a VPN help me make cheaper hotel bookings?

Connecting to a VPN hides your home IP address from the booking websites you visit and allows you to pretend to be in a different location. This provides you with various distinct advantages:

1. Access lower prices from less affluent locations: You can get an IP address in a location that is considered less affluent and may cause you to see cheaper hotel prices.
2. Compare prices from multiple locations: You can test IP addresses in various locations to check whether they affect booking costs.
3. Avoid price hikes by appearing as a first-time visitor: You can change your IP address each time you visit the booking website to appear to be a first-time visitor.#
4. Avoid long-term profiling. Ongoing profiling attached to your IP address can give booking sites useful information, such as how often you travel and how much you usually spend.

How do I use a VPN for hotel bookings?

Now that you understand automated booking systems and dynamic pricing, you can use a VPN to get cheaper hotel bookings. To make the process as easy as possible, we have created a step-by-step guide below:

1. Choose a VPN service: Start by picking a reliable VPN. We recommend NordVPN because it is highly secure and offers fast servers in 100+ countries. Alternatively, Surfshark is excellent and cheap, and IPVanish has servers in more than 25 different US cities.
2. Subscribe to the VPN: Use our link to head to the VPN’s website and subscribe. Our link will reduce the cost of the VPN by implementing an automated coupon code.
3. Install the VPN application: Our recommendations have apps for Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android. This makes it easy to use the VPN on tablets, smartphones, and computers.
4. Log in to the VPN application: Launch it and log in using your credentials from sign-up when the VPN finishes installing.
5. Connect to a VPN server: If you are trying to get cheaper hotel prices, we recommend connecting to a VPN server in a less affluent country or state. Choose a server in Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, or South America. Even testing different locations in the US may help you unlock a cheaper price. To avoid dynamic pricing, pick a different server each session to prevent your IP address from being logged.
6. Clear your browser cookies and cache: Remember to clear your cookies and cache before you start researching hotel prices. Or use incognito mode. This ensures that booking websites do not have any previous data about your searches.
7. Search for hotels: Now that you have a clean browser with no cookies and a VPN, you can search for hotels using any booking site. Remember that you will appear to be in a different country, so you might need to use Google to figure out the exchange rate.
8. Compare prices from various locations: To shop around for better hotel prices, we recommend testing a few different locations to see how it affects the cost. If you find a cheaper location, snap up the booking quickly.
9. Book the hotel: Once you find a satisfactory price, proceed with the booking. To avoid any price changes, complete the transaction while still connected to the VPN server.

What are the best VPNs to make cheaper hotel bookings?

1. NordVPN: Best VPN to make cheap hotel bookings. NordVPN has more than 3,000 servers in 100+ countries. This makes it easy to shop around for better hotel and flight prices. It is especially useful for booking hotels in high-demand destinations by connecting through a less popular server location. NordVPN also offers a 30-day money-back guarantee.
2. Surfshark: Cheapest VPN to book hotels on a budget. It’s the most affordable VPN on this list and offers servers in 100 countries, allowing you to explore hotel deals around the globe.
3. IPVanish: Known for its reliability and fast speeds. IPVanish offers servers in 50+ countries and a choice of servers in 25+ US cities. This gives you plenty of options for shopping around for lower booking costs.
4. ExpressVPN: ExpressVPN excels in unblocking region-locked content, which can be handy when accessing exclusive hotel deals available only in certain regions. Its fast speeds ensure that you can browse through booking sites swiftly, and its top-notch security keeps your transactions safe. ExpressVPN’s ability to work even in restrictive regions like China makes it a reliable choice for travelers looking to book hotels in or from such locations.
5. CyberGhost: CyberGhost is an excellent option for those new to using VPNs but wanting to ensure they get great hotel deals securely. Its user-friendly apps make it easy to access servers around the globe, and CyberGhost has more than 9000 servers giving you access to more IPs than just about any other VPN. CyberGhost combines speed, security, and the ability to unblock sites, including popular streaming services. You can test it risk-free for 45 days.

Is a VPN the only way that websites track users?

Although IP address tracking is a significant way for booking websites to monitor their visitors, it is not the only method used to track users. Other ways that websites can track you could allow websites to engage in dynamic pricing.

Cookies

Cookies are small files that websites leave in your browser. Whether you use Chrome or Firefox, booking websites like Expedia, Trivago, and Booking.com are likely leaving cooking in your browser’s memory. These tracking cookies help booking sites monitor your searches, the number of times you visit, and other telltale preferences. Booking sites exploit cookies to remember your past searches, track your behavior, and even store personal information. This data helps them tailor prices. Remember to clear your cookies.

Browser fingerprinting

Browser fingerprinting is a more advanced tracking technique. It gathers details about your browser type, version, operating system, installed plugins, and many other settings. When combined, this data allows automated systems to create a unique fingerprint for your browser and computer, which is then used to monitor you for profiling purposes and to engage in dynamic pricing. Fingerprinting can be used to track you, even if you use incognito or clear your cookies regularly. This requires special strategies, such as an anti-fingerprint browser, to be used to avoid profiling. Luckily, these types of browsers exist!

Third-party tracking

Many websites work hand in hand with third-party services to track users. These services may access and share data across multiple services and platforms, including analytic services and social media platforms. For example, if you search for hotels on Google, affiliate agreements and advertising partnerships may mean that details of your searches are shared with popular booking websites. The same is true if you visit certain social media profiles or make searches on social media that provide information about your upcoming travel plans.

How to protect against other forms of tracking

While a VPN can effectively conceal your IP address from websites, you must take additional steps to prevent the tracking methods listed above. Combing a VPN with the tips and tricks listed below will give you a holistic approach to getting cheaper prices online:

1. Clear cookies regularly: Erase cookies from your browser settings to stop websites from retaining your browsing data.
2. Use privacy-focused browsers: Opt for browsers like Firefox or Brave, which offer robust privacy protections against tracking. Even better, use a browser like MoreLogin, which includes anti-fingerprinting technologies.
3. Install privacy extensions: Extensions like uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, and Ghostery work to block trackers, prevent tracking scripts, and stop cookies,  which reduces the opportunity for tracking-based dynamic pricing.
4. Enable do not track: Turn on the “Do Not Track” setting in your browser, which signals to websites your preference not to be tracked. Most browsers enable this by default, but it is worth checking that it is engaged.
5. Use incognito mode: Using incognito mode prevents cookies from accumulating in your browser, so when researching anything to do with ticket prices consider doing this research using an incognito browser.

Combining a VPN with these measures will minimize your digital footprint and protect you from dynamic pricing and other tracking-related frustrations. However, please remember that attempting the methods above without a VPN is unlikely to work because your IP address will continue to provide the easiest tracking method.