Booking hotels online should be straightforward: you pick your destination, compare prices, and choose the best deal. But if you’ve ever noticed that prices mysteriously change depending on when or where you search, you’re not imagining things. Behind the scenes, many hotel booking platforms and travel sites engage in a practice called price discrimination, and one of the best tools you can adopt to fight back is a VPN.
In this guide, we’ll explore how online travel pricing works, why your location matters so much, and how you can use a VPN like ZoogVPN to secure cheaper rates on your next hotel stay.
Why Do Hotel Prices Change So Much?
If you’ve ever refreshed a hotel booking site only to find the price has jumped (or dropped) within minutes, you’ve experienced the effects of dynamic pricing. Hotels and booking platforms rely on algorithms that adjust prices in real time based on demand, availability, and, importantly, who is searching and from where. Let’s cover the main factors influencing what you see:
Location (IP Address Tracking)
Many travel sites use your IP address to detect your physical location. If you’re searching from a city or country with a high average income, you may be shown higher prices than someone searching from a less wealthy region.
Cookies and Browser History
If you’ve looked up the same hotel multiple times, the site may “learn” that you’re interested and increase the rate, nudging you to book before prices climb further.
Device and Browser Type
Believe it or not, travelers searching on premium devices like MacBooks or iPhones have sometimes been shown more expensive options compared to users on budget laptops or Android phones.
Membership Status or Loyalty Programs
Some sites adjust rates depending on whether you’re logged in, a frequent traveler, or part of a loyalty program.
Time and Demand Fluctuations
Prices can rise during peak hours or just before a major holiday. Hotels also use demand forecasts to adjust availability and costs.
The result? Two people searching for the exact same hotel room may see drastically different prices.
Hotel Pricing Hacks: What Is Cost Discrimination?
Price discrimination is a pricing strategy where businesses charge different amounts for the same product or service depending on what they believe a customer can pay. Airlines, rental car companies, and hotels are notorious for this practice.
For example:
- A traveler searching for a hotel room from San Francisco (a city with a high cost of living) might see a price of $350 per night.
- Another traveler searching from Phoenix or Salt Lake City may see the same hotel for $200 per night.
The only difference lies in their search location. This is where you can adopt a qualitative VPN for hotels to compare hotel prices and catch the best offers.
How a VPN for Hotels Helps You Beat Price Discrimination
A VPN (Virtual Private Network) reroutes your internet connection through an encrypted tunnel and assigns you a new IP address from a server in another location. From the perspective of the hotel booking site, it looks like you’re browsing from that new location, not your real one.
This means you can:
- Change your location to test hotel prices from different cities or countries.
- Hide your real identity so the site can’t track you across multiple visits.
- Start fresh every time by combining a VPN with private browsing (Incognito mode).
Example
Imagine you’re searching for hotels in New York City. Without a VPN, booking platforms see your real location and might assume you’re a high-spending traveler. But if you connect through a VPN server in a city with lower average income levels, you could be offered cheaper rates.
In one test conducted by journalists, the price for a popular NYC hotel varied between $206 per night from a Phoenix server and $352 per night from a San Francisco server – a 71% markup for San Franciscans. That’s the power of location-based pricing.
How Major Booking Platforms Handle Pricing
Not all travel sites use pricing algorithms in the same way, so it’s worth knowing how the most popular platforms behave before you start experimenting with a VPN.
Booking.com
Booking.com is one of the most popular hotel platforms worldwide, and it’s also one of the most dynamic in its pricing. The site frequently runs regional promotions — for example, a user browsing from Spain may see different discounts than someone searching from the U.S. Even the same hotel can show varying prices depending on which localized version of the site you use (.com, .de, .es). Using a VPN to switch regions is a great way to uncover these hidden offers.
Expedia
Expedia relies heavily on algorithms that take into account demand, browsing history, and location. Travelers have reported seeing higher rates when searching from wealthier cities compared to smaller markets. Expedia also has “member-only” discounts, so sometimes the best deal comes from combining a VPN (to test locations) with logging into your account.
Airbnb
In comparison to the other hotel booking sites, Airbnb tends to keep its base prices fairly consistent regardless of where you search from. Hosts set their nightly rates, and while Airbnb does add service fees and taxes, those don’t usually fluctuate based on your location. In other words, a VPN won’t always help you save money on Airbnb the way it can with hotel sites. Still, a VPN is useful for securing your data when booking stays, especially over public Wi-Fi.
Hotels.com
Hotels.com is part of the Expedia Group but sometimes shows different rates and promotions compared to Expedia itself. With Hotels.com, regional variations are real: searching from certain countries can reveal special deals or even lower prices for the exact same room. Switching your VPN location and checking a few different versions of the site is often worth the extra effort.
Step-By-Step Guide: How to Use a VPN for Hotel Booking Savings
Here’s how you can put this into practice:
1. Choose a Reliable VPN
Look for a VPN for hotels with:
- Servers in multiple countries and cities (so you can test different locations).
- Strong encryption to protect your data.
- Good speed so searches load quickly.
ZoogVPN, for instance, offers globally distributed servers in both high-income and low-income regions, giving you flexibility to experiment with different booking rates.
2. Clear Your Cookies and Cache
Before running any hotel searches, clear your browser history and cookies. Otherwise, sites might recognize your past searches and inflate prices.
Alternatively, open a fresh Incognito window (Chrome) or Private window (Firefox/Safari) every time you search.
3. Connect to a VPN Server in a Different Location
Think strategically about where to connect:
- Try lower-cost regions such as Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, or smaller U.S. cities like Phoenix or Salt Lake City.
- Avoid servers in wealthy hotspots like San Francisco, London, or New York City, which often get inflated rates.
4. Compare Prices Across Multiple Locations
Run the same hotel search while connected to servers in different places. Write down the rates and compare. Often, you’ll see savings of 10–50%, depending on the destination and booking platform.
5. Don’t Forget Mobile vs. Desktop Searches
Some booking sites show lower rates on mobile devices. Combine your VPN with a smartphone search to unlock potential “mobile-only” deals.
6. Use Loyalty and Promo Codes Wisely
Sometimes, logging in as a site member provides discounts, while in other cases, staying logged out and searching anonymously yields better prices. Test both approaches.
Additional Tips for Maximizing Travel Savings
Using a VPN is a powerful way to sidestep price discrimination, but it shouldn’t be the only trick up your sleeve. Hotel pricing is a moving target, influenced not only by your virtual location but also by timing, platforms, and even currency exchange rates. To get the absolute best deal, combine your VPN strategy with a few tried-and-true booking hacks:
Book in Advance, but Not Too Early
Hotel rates usually follow a curve: they’re high if you book too far in advance, then settle into a “sweet spot” a couple of weeks before your stay, and finally spike again as the date approaches. Industry data suggests that 2–3 weeks before your trip is often the best window for securing good rates. Use your VPN to compare prices across this period, you might find that a room costing $220 today drops to $180 if you wait just a little.
Try Different Booking Platforms
Don’t rely on just one site. You can compare hotel prices and detect how significantly they vary between Booking.com, Expedia, Trivago, Hotels.com, Priceline, or even the hotel’s own official site. Some platforms negotiate exclusive deals with properties, while others tack on hidden service fees. Running the same search on multiple platforms with your VPN connected can help uncover these differences.
Look at Regional Versions of Sites
Booking platforms often operate localized websites with slightly different pricing structures. For instance, the German or Spanish version of Booking.com may display lower nightly rates for the same hotel than the U.S. version. By switching your VPN to a server in the relevant country, you can access these regional versions and sometimes save a surprising amount.
Leverage Currency Differences
Another overlooked trick is to pay attention to the currency in which the hotel is listed. If a room is priced in a currency that is weaker compared to your home currency, you may end up saving after conversion. For example, searching with your VPN set to a country with a weaker currency could yield lower final costs when your bank processes the payment. Just remember to check your card’s foreign transaction fees to ensure your savings aren’t wiped out.
The Bigger Picture: Why VPNs Are Essential Beyond Savings
While saving money on hotels is a great perk, the benefits of using a VPN extend far beyond that:
- Privacy – protects your browsing data from snooping by ISPs, advertisers, or malicious actors.
- Security – encrypts your traffic, especially useful when booking hotels over public Wi-Fi in cafés or airports.
- Access – lets you view geo-restricted content (such as streaming services) while traveling.
ZoogVPN, for example, not only helps travelers test different locations for hotel pricing but also keeps your financial transactions secure when entering credit card details online.
Final Thoughts: Save Money With VPN
Dynamic pricing in the travel industry isn’t going away anytime soon. Hotels and booking platforms will continue using location data, cookies, and browsing behavior to nudge you into paying more. But with the right tools, such as ZoogVPN, you can experience lower hotel rates and enjoy the best facilities cost-efficiently.
By clearing cookies, searching in Incognito mode, and most importantly, using a VPN like ZoogVPN to spoof your location, you can turn cost discrimination on its head and potentially save hundreds on your next trip with cheaper hotel prices.
Next time you’re booking a place to stay, take a few extra minutes to test prices from different VPN servers and ensure a secure hotel booking. That little bit of effort might make the difference between an overpriced room and a great deal.
Happy travels, and happy saving!
- Diana BestaievaContent Writer at ZoogVPN. Diana deeply explores the newest technologies and shares valuable insights engagingly and comprehensively. Keeping up with the tech news, she makes in-depth content, explaining complex concepts with ease.
