I Tried This Viral VPN Travel Trick to Score Cheaper Hotels and Flights

There is a VPN travel hack doing the rounds once more — principally due to a viral X post. Supposedly, should you set your VPN to a less expensive nation, flights and resort costs turn out to be cheaper.

So I attempted it. Correctly.

I used a VPN to change my location to Brazil, Vietnam, Taipei and India. I used three of the best VPN providers — ExpressVPN, NordVPN and Proton VPN — and made positive I wasn’t logged into any accounts. Each search was in a recent Incognito tab, and I verified that the web sites I visited, together with Google Flights and Skyscanner, accurately detected my spoofed location and confirmed the suitable native foreign money.

My outcomes may shock you: I did not really see meaningfully cheaper flights, though it did work higher on one other entrance.

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How I attempted to seek out cheaper flights with a VPN

Over a number of classes, I searched throughout a number of routes. These included LHR to NYC, MAN to HKG, HKG to AMS, SFO to LAX. I blended home and worldwide, short-haul and lengthy.

Most often, costs had been inside $1 of one another. The most important saving I noticed was on a flight from San Francisco to Japan, which was $63 (about 7%) cheaper when utilizing a VPN set to Brazil. Typically, oddly sufficient, the VPN model was extra costly than simply reserving from residence.

However by no means, not as soon as, did I see something near the massive financial savings that folks on-line swear by. No jackpot fares, no hidden bargains, no half-price fares hiding behind digital borders.

Let’s evaluate the bottom costs I may discover on affordable routes (not ridiculous 30+ hour journeys with a number of stopovers) for a five-day return journey. I picked dates precisely two months forward of the date I used to be looking on and after the vacations to attempt to get impartial costs. Here is what I discovered:

Here is the place a VPN may really prevent some cash

When evaluating resort costs, there was extra of a distinction. I noticed financial savings between $100 and $200 when motels in Manhattan, New York, for a similar January journey because the flights. That is Jan. 19 by means of Jan. 23, 2026 — so a four-night keep in complete.

On Reserving.com, I in contrast a reserving for one on the Westin Occasions Sq. resort. The perfect financial savings I discovered with a VPN was once I related to Brazil servers, the place the value was $815. With no VPN, the identical reserving was $976.

Most individuals would most likely be completely satisfied to avoid wasting $100 on a resort. Nonetheless, I did not discover the superb, half-priced offers the web would lead you to imagine a VPN will get you.

So why does not this VPN journey workaround work anymore?

To seek out out precisely why this method does not work anymore, I spoke to Michael Nizich, director of the Entrepreneurship and Expertise Innovation Heart at NYIT. He confirmed that whereas this trick may’ve labored as soon as upon a time, the trade has caught on.

“It was once very potential,” he informed me, “to fake to buy from one other nation and capitalize on region-specific pricing.” However now, distributors use methods like deep packet inspection and browser fingerprinting to smell out the place you are actually coming from. Which means manufacturers aren’t simply what your VPN says — they’re digging deeper and making use of costs primarily based on that.

So even when the web site exhibits you are shopping from Hanoi, the positioning may nonetheless know you are sitting in Cleveland, crossing your fingers for reasonable airfare.

This complete concept survives as a result of once in a while, somebody someplace sees a small low cost — or a glitch — and shouts about it on social media. However airways and journey corporations have largely plugged the gaps.

What’s a VPN good for?

Loads. VPNs are nonetheless the most effective methods to maintain your exercise non-public, particularly while you’re connecting on public Wi-Fi on the airport or in a espresso store. A VPN hides your shopping exercise out of your service supplier and any community directors.

They’re additionally useful for avoiding location-based censorship or accessing streaming services on vacation or which might be blocked in your nation. Need to stream BBC iPlayer from the US or watch HBO Max from the UK? VPNs might help you out.

VPNs are additionally essential for distant employees. Nizich confused that VPNs are nonetheless “an incredible and really helpful method of securing your visitors over the Web and extra particularly on to your group.”

However — and that is the vital bit — they are not magical cloaks of invisibility. No service can maintain you fully nameless on-line, though many will let you know they’ll. And keep in mind that your VPN is barely nearly as good as its repairs. In the event you’re utilizing an historical model or skipping software program updates, you are leaving the digital door extensive open.

“Cyber criminals are capitalizing on these vulnerabilities,” Nizich warned, “and as soon as they’re recognized, you turn out to be a goal till you repair your system by making use of these patches and updates.”

So use a VPN, maintain it up to date, and pair it with good habits. When you may have the ability to save a couple of bucks, do not anticipate a VPN to ship a 5-star resort in Tokyo for the value of a hostel in Mumbai.