- Details
With the advent of Virtual Private Networks or VPNs and knowledge about their abilities spreading globally, the big question on many people’s minds now is: why not save money with a VPN?
After all, this is one of the humble but versatile VPN’s many skills. Yes, you read that right. As strange as that sounds, you can set up your VPN cybersecurity software to actually find discounts and different regional pricing thanks to the power and versatility of a VPN.
It is estimated that over 5 billion of us now are connected to the internet, and within the next decade that could be billions more as internet penetration speeds up ever faster and spreads ever wider across the globe. Not only that but the number of connected devices around the world is expected to reach over 40 billion by 2035. Some even say that these figures are conservative! As a result, it has never been as important to secure and anonymize your internet connection with cybersecurity software like a premium VPN in the growing, massive internet jungle.
What is another thing we all do aside from just browsing the internet jungle? Well, that would be chatting, watching videos, and, of course, online shopping! These days, just about anything can be bought online, including one of society’s favorite and most required things to do; travel! In order to travel, billions of us look up flights and hotels, as well as rental car services each minute across several platforms on the internet. If the internet were switched off, the travel industry would probably nuke itself. The classical way of purchasing travel options, such as going to a travel agent, is slowly going out the window. This is being practically fully replaced with online alternatives. That is just how important online travel platforms are for all of us. However, what is another thing that we all complain about? Prices! Traveling was never cheap, especially now in this economic climate. We would all love to find a discount at a hotel that is otherwise quite expensive, wouldn’t we? Hotels change their prices seasonally, but one thing that you may not know is that hotels price their services, rooms, and all else regionally.
Now we can get into what this all means for you, what a VPN is, and how to get discounts on hotels with a VPN!
What is a VPN?
A VPN is a must-have tool if you want to be secure and anonymous in today’s internet jungle. This means blocking hackers, trackers, and surveillance of any kind. No matter if it is the government or your ISP, whether you are a regular citizen or a high-value journalist, having a VPN sanitizes all of your internet traffic while keeping you anonymous and private. Because of these facts, not only will a VPN encrypt and secure your connection itself, but it will also tell the web you are somewhere else than you are. This is why a VPN is short for Virtual, Private, Network. The network you are joining contains the VPN provider’s servers that are used solely by VPN users. These servers are both encrypted and placed all over the world in different cities. This network is both virtual and private. Think of it as a tunnel through which all of your browsing, downloading, and transactions disappear into thin air.
How to Set Your VPN to Save Money on Hotels
Aside from security and anonymity, you can use a clever little trick to reduce the prices you find online that are given to you on booking and travel websites. Hotel chains are large, commercial entities that are always looking for maximum profit. Billions of people including regular travelers and business travelers stay at hotels and make reservations online. A hotel room these days could go for anything between 20 dollars a night to thousands of dollars, depending on the level of the hotel. However, hotels also price their rooms regionally, and online. This means that, if you are booking a hotel from Norway or the UK, or the U.S., online algorithms know that you are not booking from a third-world country. As such, the prices offered to you online may differ wildly than if you were to book from a lower-income country such as India or somewhere on the African continent.
Here is where a VPN comes in. This is what you need to do to find crazy discounts on hotels thanks to a VPN;
- Subscribe to a premium VPN like NordVPN or Surfshark
- Download the app for your respective device
- Run the program
- Connect to a server outside of your current location (another city in another country)
- Check the prices on that hotel booking site again
Now, connecting to a server in India may result in dramatically different prices for that same hotel you are looking at. That room may cost 300 dollars if you were browsing from the U.S., but not, since your VPN placed you in India (let’s say) by modifying your IP address, you may find that that same room costs 150 dollars. Yes, this is cruel discrimination, but that is how the business world works.
Each time you flip servers, you need to clear your browser history. This can be done easily by simply browsing in Incognito or Private Browsing mode in your browser, instead of the standard browsing mode. This way, the cache is cleared and the browser will not transmit that you are changing your location. Remember, you can do the same thing with flights and other online services, so have a good play around and find those crazy discounts! Finally, it is important to check whether VPN usage is legal in your country, this is your responsibility. You will find that free VPNs cannot match premium VPNs in the sense that you need maximum anonymization, security, and IP address relocation abilities to be able to orchestrate these clever little workarounds.