How to use a VPN to get the best travel deals

Many travel shoppers are unaware that booking sites like Expedia, airlines, hotels, and car rental agencies often use dynamic pricing. Dynamic pricing on these sites means that prices vary depending on your location, browsing history, and internet provider, but with your iPhone and a VPN you can appear to be located somewhere else.

Using a VPN can unlock deals and perks that are unavailable otherwise. Here's how to get the best prices on travel purchases with a VPN.

Location-Based Prices

Most of the travel websites adjust prices based on a shopper's location. The prices you see for a trip may differ greatly from those browsing from another state.

The same holds at the international level. Flights priced in the United States might be more expensive than the same flights booked in a country with a less affluent population.

For example, airline tickets purchased in Mexico may differ from the price of the same ticket purchased when made in the United States, even the two countries are neighbors.

Using an iPhone VPN app lets you appear as if you were in other cities or countries, allowing you to shop for the best deals.

Browser History and IP Address

Your internet service provider (ISP) may share data about the websites you visit with travel websites. If an airline notices that you've been checking the same flights repeatedly, that site might increase prices as it knows you're serious about a particular flight.

With a VPN, you can bypass your ISP and appear as a new user. This can unlock lower prices as those airlines often entice new users with discounts.

Combining a VPN IP address with a private mode in your browser will strip all identifying data from your searches. Without knowing your shopping history, sites cannot bump prices based on travel search history.

Discounts for Locals

Travel sites occasionally offer perks to users in different regions. Hotel chains might offer bonus loyalty points to local customers to fill up otherwise empty rooms. Theme parks and amusement parks often provide incentives to people visiting from distant countries.

Sometimes, airlines offer bundled discounts on hotel and car rentals for customers traveling from a distance but may not offer these to local customers who likely have their own houses and cars.

Taking advantage of currency exchange rates

Purchasing travel from a country with a favorable exchange rate is often cheaper than paying for travel using your local currency.

In some cases, taxes and travel fees may be lower in other states or countries. In the U.S., the average sales tax in New York is around eight percent, while there is no sales tax in Montana. Appearing to be located in Montana instead of New York can result in lower costs for the same travel.

Finding regions with lower final prices might require effort, but it can be worth it.

How to find the best prices on travel with an iPhone VPN

The best VPN for iPhone apps let you pick servers in different local regions, states, and countries, tricking travel sites into showing you deals from those areas.

To start, open your iPhone VPN app, choose a server in a state or country where you want to check travel prices and connect to the VPN.

Using a search engine to visit a travel site and connect to the correct regional website is a good idea.

If you simply enter Expedia.com, for instance, you might be routed automatically to the U.S. site, regardless of where you connect. If you're looking for the prices offered on Expedia in Spain, a Google search for Expedia will route you to the local Expedia.es website.

You can also use the power of search engines to find the best price on deals in the area you're appearing to connect from. Searching for a flight on Google often includes a list of the best local pricing.

With our guides, you can learn how to turn on and how to turn off a VPN connection on your iPhone. If you haven't subscribed to a VPN service, there are numerous Black Friday deals from VPN providers in effect now.