When my wife and I were planning our first big trip across Europe, we were still the classic “bargain hunters”. We spent hours on comparison sites, watching for sale emails, combining coupons, cashbacks and various links. We thought we had exhausted all the possibilities. We just didn’t know that the price we were seeing wasn’t objective at all.
The discovery came by accident. It was a remote guesthouse in Liguria – we were looking for accommodation on the coast, beautiful terrace with sea view, reviews 9.1. I opened Booking on my mobile, my wife on her laptop. And the difference? Almost 70 euros. Same date, same conditions, different facilities. And later we found out – different IP address.
That was the beginning of our little sport. Since then, before we book anything, we change our IP address as naturally as a toothbrush. We keep our VPN on all the time, at work and at home. And it’s changed travel.
Prices by country? Reality, not conspiracy
It’s really not a coincidence. Sites like Booking, Agoda, Expedia or Hotels.com routinely adjust prices according to the user’s geographic location. More precisely: based on where your IP address is.
Here are a few examples that have both amused and surprised us over the years:
- Barcelona – at one boutique hotel we got a price 18% lower than accessing from Italy when connecting via Sweden. From the Czech Republic it was in the middle.
- Bangkok – with a VPN connection set to the Philippines, Agoda offered us the same hotel for more than a third cheaper than with a Czech IP.
- Miami – the luxury hotel on South Beach was significantly cheaper when connecting from Brazil, even with different breakfast packages.
- Crete – from India the price was lower, but the card payment options disappeared completely. Via Austria the price went up slightly but everything worked.
- Tokyo – a local business hotel offered a discount when connecting from Hong Kong, but pretended to be a “last minute deal” with a higher price when connecting from Europe.
And all this in a few clicks.
What has this game of better hotel prices taught us?
We’ve had our “rituals” over the years. When we plan a vacation, we usually sit at the table in the evening, laptop next to laptop. Both connected through a different server. Me, France, wife, Taiwan. Sometimes we add a cell phone with a VPN over the US to have a third option.
It may sound like an over-obsession… but on our trip to New York last year, for example, this approach saved us over $200 on just two nights. And that’s the kind of money that gets you a damn good brunch in Brooklyn. Maybe two.
VPN as a passport to a cheaper version of the internet
We don’t just use VPNs for security or data protection. In our home, it’s mainly a tool to pay less than others for the same things. And the more we travel, the more we see how much this little tool pays off.
It’s almost like having a magic remote control – you switch the country you’re “in” and suddenly you’re in a completely different world. The web behaves differently. The menus look different. Prices drop, sometimes new options are added that didn’t exist before.
A few moments that I still remember to this day!
- Buenos Aires – accommodation in a retro hotel in the city centre: from German IP 96 USD, from Mexico 68 USD. As a bonus we added a welcome drink card.
- Oslo – Norwegian hotels are not cheap. But when we tried to access through a server in Slovenia? 14% discount plus free parking.
- Bali – weekend resort for 1 250 000 IDR. From Germany? Suddenly 1 480 000. FROM THE US? 1 630 000. From Malaysia? 1,200,000. Same room. Same photos.
Wherever we have been – we have always found that the price is not a given – it is negotiable. Just not by emailing the owner, but by showing the site another version of yourself.
If websites “play” you, play too
Booking platforms are not charities. Their algorithms work with your location, history, language, device… and adjust what you see accordingly. It’s a business model, not a bug. And we’ve decided not to ignore it, but to use it to our advantage.
For example:
- Prices on mobile tend to be lower than on desktop.
- If you access anonymously and without logging in, the menu will change.
- Sometimes it’s enough to switch the language from Czech to English – and the price jumps by 8%.
- Another example? You change the currency from EURO to USD and the system converts the exchange rate “your way”.
Therefore, we have a simple rule: let’s do at least 3 scenarios before the final click. From different IPs, on different devices, with different language or currency.
And you know what? 9 times out of 10, it pays off.
What about ethics?
Occasionally someone asks us if it’s “a bit of a scam”. But no. We’re not hacking the system, we’re just taking advantage of it showing us different versions of reality. Actually, we’re doing the same thing it’s doing – just from the other side.
If someone offers you two prices for the same thing, just depending on where you come from, you have two options:
✔️ accept it as fact
❌ or adapt to pay less
We chose the latter. And our conscience is clear.
How to do it without technical magic
Now you might be thinking, ” That’s nice, but I’m not really into VPNs.” Honestly, we weren’t many years ago either. But today? It’s an app like any other. You turn it on, choose a country, and everything else works itself out.
You don’t need to understand encryption or IP addresses. You just need to know what you want:
- compare accommodation prices from different locations
- get a fairer offer
- not to pay unnecessarily more than another person who clicked a few miles away
Everything else you will learn along the way. Just like us.
Our system in practice: simple but effective
At home, we call it the “three-zone test” – every time we choose a hotel, we take three steps:
- A basic check from the home IP – to see what the system “naturally” offers us.
- Change IP to another continent – Asia, Western Europe, sometimes Latin America.
- Mobile access via LTE and other currency – purely for comparison.
This way we cut our price in Rome by €110, in Washington D.C. by $160, and on Koh Samui we got an even bigger villa with a private pool instead of a double for a higher price.
And sure, sometimes nothing happens. The price stays the same. But this is proof that the system is smart – and we need to be smarter.
In conclusion: do you want a fair price? Then you have to ask for it
The world of online booking pretends to be fair, but it’s not. It shows everyone something different. And most people take it for granted.
We don’t.
Over the years, we have realised that if you want to travel profitably, you have to be proactive. Change your IP address, do some comparisons, remember that what you see is not the ultimate truth.
So next time, before you click “book”, give it an extra five minutes. Maybe those five minutes will decide whether you’ll have an extra coffee on the spot… or pay for the whole next day.
