Gjurgjica Panova
Updated on: December 22, 2023
Short on time? Here’s how to save money on hotels with a VPN in 2024:
- Step 1: Download and install a reliable VPN. I recommend ExpressVPN because it has a vast server network, allowing you to easily find the cheapest prices for hotels.
- Step 2: Connect to different VPN servers. Browse prices using different VPN server locations until you find the best one.
- Step 3: Book your stay. Now you’ve managed to save a few bucks on your hotel!
Booking sites typically adjust accommodation prices according to your location, which they determine based on your IP address. This means that you might end up paying more for the same hotel or apartment than someone from another country.
A VPN changes your virtual location by assigning you an IP address that matches the location of the server you connect to. So if you connect to a country where the average income is lower, you’ll potentially find cheaper accommodation.
I tested several VPNs and found the best ones that work with top booking sites and have servers in lots of different countries. ExpressVPN is my top choice — it has servers in 105+ countries, giving you plenty of options to find cheap accommodation, and it offers great speeds too.
How to Use a VPN to Save Money on Hotels (+ 6 Other Tips)
1. Use a VPN
VPNs hide your real location, which allows you to enjoy discounts that may not be available in your current location. They do that by replacing your actual IP address, which reveals your general location, with an IP address from one of their servers. So when you connect to a server in the US, your VPN will assign you a US IP address, which will make it appear as if you’re visiting every site from the US, even if you are physically in a different place.
I tested different VPNs and connected to a couple of servers worldwide. When I connected to a server in Thailand, some of the accommodations I found were up to 57% cheaper compared to the prices I saw when I wasn’t connected to a VPN.
2. Clear Your Browsing History
Cookies on hotel booking websites store data that might reveal your location even if you’re connected to a VPN. These sites usually store cache to make your experience on the site more personalized, which includes information like your search dates and target location. Some sites may even raise prices for hotels or flights you repeatedly search for, as this type of behavior suggests you’re likely to book soon and are willing to pay more.
To clear your browsing history, navigate to your browser’s History settings and choose Clear browsing data. Alternatively, try the incognito mode. When you switch to incognito mode, the browser doesn’t remember any of your browsing activities and it automatically deletes all data when you close the incognito mode.
3. Check for Early or Last-Minute Deals
Booking early or last minute can save you a lot of money if your travel plans are flexible. Hotels often offer discounts for early bookings or last-minute reservations to fill empty rooms. The last-minute deals I found on sites like LastMinute.com and Booking.com typically came with a 20–30% discount from the standard prices.
4. Compare Prices on Different Websites
Every site has exclusive offers or promotions that can save you money. For example, I found at least 3 different prices for the same hotel in Los Angeles on Booking.com, Expedia, and LastMinute.com. It’s always a good idea to shop around so you can find the best deals.
5. Get a Package Deal
Hotel accommodations are usually cheaper if they’re booked with a flight, rather than separately. I tried to book a flight and hotel together and separately on LastMinute.com, and I was able to get a 50% cheaper deal with the package. That said, this type of deal usually only gets you hotels near the airport.
6. Negotiate Directly With the Hotel
Sometimes, hotels can offer better deals when you book directly with them. This is because booking with the hotel excludes any fees you pay to the booking site for finding you the deal.
7. Consider Other Benefits
Some deals offer better or more than others. For example, a lot of hotels include complimentary breakfast, parking, and access to amenities like spas or gyms. They won’t save you money, but it adds value to the overall price. For instance, I found 2 hotels in Dublin with similar prices, but only one of them included breakfast and parking.
Quick summary of the best VPNs for saving money on hotels:
- 1. 🥇ExpressVPN — Best overall VPN for saving money on hotels.
- 2. 🥈Private Internet Access — Great for securely browsing booking sites.
- 3. 🥉CyberGhost VPN — Beginner-friendly VPN for finding cheap accommodation.
🥇1. ExpressVPN — Best VPN for Saving Money on Hotels in 2024
ExpressVPN is my top choice for saving money on hotels — it has a large server network in 105 countries across America, Asia, Europe, Africa, and Australasia, giving you many options to find cheap hotels.
I like that the VPN has full leak protection, including against WebRTC, DNS, and IPv6 leaks, which means there’s little to no chance that your IP address will leak and reveal your location to the booking site you’re browsing. It also comes with other advanced security features, including:
- RAM-only servers. They wipe all data with every server reboot, which minimizes the risk of dynamic pricing or targeted ads based on past actions.
- An audited no-logs policy. The VPN doesn’t store your IP address or browsing history, which means that no one, not even your VPN, can track your online activities or use your browsing history to influence the prices you’re shown.
- Perfect forward secrecy. This feature changes the encryption key for each session, so even if hackers gain access to one key, they won’t be able to see past and future encryption keys. This provides an added layer of security when you’re searching for cheap hotels online, especially if you’re using unsecured public Wi-Fi networks.
- Threat Manager. Prevents ad trackers from spying on your browsing, so travel websites can’t monitor your interest and potentially inflate hotel prices based on your browsing habits. It also blocks connections to malicious sites which pretend to be legitimate booking sites.
- Ad blocker. Stops ads from loading on booking sites. In my tests, it blocked all ads on the booking websites I visited. This allows sites to load faster.
This VPN has fast speeds, too. Booking sites loaded instantly, and I was able to make reservations very quickly without any slowdowns.
I think it’s convenient that ExpressVPN has a split-tunneling feature, which increases your VPN speeds by allowing you to choose which apps use the VPN and which apps use your local network. I was able to get faster speeds for browsing on booking sites by routing some of my traffic through my local network.
I also like how intuitive ExpressVPN’s apps are. It’s easy to find any server location as ExpressVPN divides servers by region, and there’s a quick-connect button if you want to see whether local prices are cheaper. You can also set up 1-click shortcuts to your favorite apps for booking hotels, like Booking.com, or LastMinute.com, which appear on your screen immediately after you connect to a server.
ExpressVPN has several plans starting at $6.67 / month. Every plan is backed with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Read our full ExpressVPN review
🥈2. Private Internet Access — Great for Securely Accessing Booking Sites
Private Internet Access (PIA) protects you from fake booking sites, blocks trackers so sites won’t be able to spy on your browsing history and potentially inflate hotel prices, and stops ads from loading on booking sites so they load faster. It does all of this thanks to its ad blocker PIA MACE, which is one of the best VPN ad blocker on the market.
This provider comes with other strong security features that can prevent sites from identifying your true location and potentially showing you higher prices based on geographical data. PIA uses full leak protection, RAM-only servers, and perfect forward secrecy, and it has a no-logs policy that’s passed an independent security audit.
It has highly customizable apps, too, so you can personalize your settings for faster and more secure connections when browsing hotel booking sites. This includes choosing between different protocols and encryption levels, and setting up auto-connections for untrusted Wi-Fi networks to protect your data when looking for accommodation on booking sites.
PIA offers really fast speeds on all of its servers in 91 countries, but it’s slower than ExpressVPN. That said, hotel booking sites loaded instantly, even when I connected to more distant servers, and I was able to browse through different listings without any interruptions.
I’m a big fan of PIA’s split-tunneling feature, which allows you to choose which apps use or don’t use the VPN, and which IP addresses bypass the VPN. This helps to avoid any speed loss on sites that you don’t need to route through the VPN.
Private Internet Access offers plans that start at $2.11 / month. All plans have a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Read our full Private Internet Access review
🥉3. CyberGhost VPN — Beginner-Friendly VPN
CyberGhost VPN has apps that make it very easy to connect to any of its servers in 100 countries. For example, it lets you mark servers as Favorites if you’ve already found locations that are consistently cheap, so you can easily spot them on the server list. There’s also an option to auto-connect to your preferred server location and a search function for manually searching for servers in the app.
CyberGhost’s server network is impressive, with servers in Europe, America, Asia, and Africa — this means you’ll have no issues finding servers in different locations and getting great hotel deals. The large server network also means you’ll avoid overcrowded servers which might slow down your speeds.
In terms of speed, CyberGhost is a good choice. In my tests, hotel booking sites loaded in no more than 2 seconds, and I didn’t experience any significant slowdowns when browsing on the sites. It’s definitely a fair bit slower than ExpressVPN, though.
This VPN has a great ad, tracker, and malicious site blocker, too. Its Content Blocker feature blocked all shady booking sites I tried to visit, and it stopped some ads from loading on booking sites, which allowed them to load a little faster. The VPN also has RAM-only servers, perfect forward secrecy, an audited no-logs policy, and DNS and IPv6 leak protection.
CyberGhost VPN has plans starting at $2.03 / month. Long-term plans have a 45-day money-back guarantee, and monthly plans have a 14-day money-back guarantee.
Read our full CyberGhost VPN review
Tried Using a VPN to Book Hotels, But It’s Not Working? Try These Troubleshooting Tips
Check for IP Leaks
IP leaks can occur for a number of reasons. For example, the VPN may disconnect from the server if the VPN server is experiencing issues like outages, which will reveal your IP address to the site you’re browsing.
To prevent this from happening, make sure you turn on your VPN’s kill switch — a feature that disconnects you from the VPN every time your connection to a VPN server drops. This prevents IP leaks. If your IP address is leaking for other reasons, like incorrect VPN configurations, you should do an IP leak test online. If the test detects your real IP address or any IP address not associated with your VPN server, you should enable DNS leak protection in your VPN settings.
Switch to a Different Server
Servers may be temporarily unavailable, overcrowded, or undergoing maintenance. In any of these situations, your VPN likely won’t be able to establish a connection with the server. The best way to get around this is to connect to a different server.
Clear the VPN App Cache
Corrupted cache may contain incorrect or outdated data, and when apps rely on this corrupted data, it leads to errors, crashes, or unexpected behavior. The easiest way to get rid of this issue is to clear the VPN app cache.
To clear the VPN app cache, go to Settings and select Applications. Find the option to manage applications, click on your VPN app, and select Clear Cache.
Reinstall the VPN App
Changes in app settings may cause connectivity issues and the easiest way to restore the default settings is to reinstall the VPN on your device. To do that, go to Settings and select Applications. Select the option to manage applications, find the VPN app in the list, and click on the Uninstall option. Once you uninstall the app, you can download the app to your device again.
Make Sure Your VPN App is Updated
An outdated VPN app may have bugs and may not be compatible with the updated servers. To update your app, go to the app store, search for the VPN app, and see if there’s an Update option next to it. If there is, click on it. To prevent this from happening, enable the auto-download option in your device’s app store.
Contact VPN Customer Support
If nothing you’ve tried has worked so far, consider contacting your VPN’s support team. They’ll be able to give you a more personalized response to the issue you’re having. All the VPNs I recommend offer a live chat option and email support.
Can I Get Better Hotel Prices Using a Free VPN?
You might, but there’s no guarantee. The biggest issue with free VPNs is that most of them only give you access to a limited number of server locations, typically in popular places like the US and the UK, where the prices aren’t really cheap. Another problem is that free VPNs limit bandwidth, which means you’ll only get a couple of hours to find the best possible prices, which isn’t great if you want to do solid digging. Plus, a lot of them aren’t very secure. They may leak your IP address, which will reveal your location to the site.
That’s why I recommend purchasing a premium VPN like ExpressVPN. It has a large server network in 105 countries, giving you plenty of server options in low and middle-income countries. Moreover, it has the fastest speeds on the market for browsing hotel deals.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it legal to book hotels using a VPN?
Booking hotels using a VPN is generally legal. I didn’t find any booking site that bans VPNs, but I recommend going over the booking site’s terms of service and privacy policy before you use one. It’s also important to note that some countries, like China and Iran, limit and ban VPN use, so if you’re in any of those countries, you should familiarize yourself with local laws and regulations before you connect to a server.
The VPNs I recommend work with all top booking sites. ExpressVPN is the best, as it has servers in 105 countries, is the fastest on the market, and works well in restrictive countries, so you can browse booking sites with it from any location.
Why do hotel prices vary between countries?
Hotel prices vary between countries for a variety of reasons, including economic, local, and market factors. Countries with different economic standings have varying income levels and purchasing power, leading hotels to adjust their prices accordingly. Operational costs, such as local salaries, utility rates, and property expenses, also play a role as they differ from one region to another. Additionally, government regulations, taxes, and the competitive landscape in the hospitality industry can influence prices.
That’s why booking sites may show you different accommodations based on your location, too. To make the most of hotel prices, consider using a good VPN. VPNs hide your location by giving a new IP address, which makes it appear as if you’re visiting the booking site from elsewhere — ideally from a place that gets lower prices.
Why is my VPN not working with booking sites?
The most likely cause is an IP leak. If your real IP address is leaking, then the booking sites will show you prices for your location. Fixing this means going through a couple of troubleshooting steps, including checking for IP leaks on an IP leak test site online. You should also see if the VPN is connected and make sure that you’ve enabled the kill switch.
Can a VPN save me money on other travel expenses besides hotels?
Yes, a VPN can save you money beyond hotels. Airlines, for example, often use dynamic pricing, and by using a VPN you might be able to view and lock in lower airfares. Similarly, rental car companies and even experience or activity booking platforms might offer different prices depending on the region from which you’re accessing their site, and if that’s the case, a VPN can save you money.
