An investigation on Booking.com, Hotels.com, and Hertz.
U.S.-based travelers booking their international holidays are charged up to 70% more when searching for hotels from home than they would abroad, according to an investigation by cybersecurity company NordVPN. The research revealed that Americans can save hundreds of dollars by using a VPN (virtual private network) and changing their location to the local destination–though not always.
The company analyzed prices on Booking.com, Hertz, Hotels.com, Europcar, and Enterprise in different countries. It found that Americans pay hundreds of dollars more for the same deals. For example, hiring a car from the U.K. company Enterprise in Edinburgh, Scotland, costs Americans $1,249 without a VPN and £512 ($737) while using a VPN set to the U.K. location. That’s a difference of $512 for the same car.
The same discrepancy was observed with hotels, theme parks, and luxury holidays. For a luxury trip to Paris, Americans were quoted $8,746 on Hotels.com for a 7-night stay in a junior suite at the Hôtel Splendide Royal Paris – Relais & Châteaux. On the French version of the same website, the price came down to $7,770.
Three other searches on Hotels.com find differences between local and U.S. websites for the same deal. A similar result also popped up for Booking.com when a 7-night stay in Hotel Kennedy in Milan, Italy, for a family of three reflected a price difference of $203.
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This is the second time that the company conducted this research. The analysis used searches for identical products by the same vendor using different country servers and there was a price difference observed; however, the research also found similar prices in many cases.
Marijus Briedis, Chief Technology Officer at NordVPN, explains that travel websites can track users online and algorithms can adjust prices according to spending power of different countries. “Never assume you’re getting the same deal as everyone else. Your location, the number of visits you pay to a website, and how your search fits in with the school holiday schedule, can all influence the price you’re offered.”
The Fodor’s team did its own investigation in an attempt to verify the report’s claims, and though we found some discrepancies between American and European prices, it wasn’t always the case. We went one step further: having one person based in Los Angeles, California, and one person in Copenhagen, Denmark, check prices on the same properties. We also used a VPN and set our location to France.
When searching for the District Nation hotel in Paris from August 12-19, Hotels.com quoted $678 from the Danish site and $453 from the American site. But strangely, the price went up to $899 when using the VPN. We noticed a similar result on Hotels.com for Hôtel Splendide Royal Paris – Relais & Châteaux: the price skyrocketed on the VPN to €8,455 ($9,116) for a week-long stay while the American site quoted $7,750. However, the price fell down considerably ($6,618) with a VPN using Booking.com.
Contrary to this, Rafayel on the Left Bank in London showed $1,712 from Denmark, $1,708 from the U.S., and €1,589 ($1,713) from the VPN. The Best Western Hotel in Copenhagen also showed similar prices from Denmark and the U.S.
For car rentals, however, we noticed that Europcar and Hertz both charged Americans more. For a week-long hire in Copenhagen from Hertz, for example, it quoted $549 from the U.S. but $323 from Denmark for the same Economy Elite (Ford Fiesta or similar) category.
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How to Save Money
Using a VPN service while searching for a hotel or travel deal may save you money, but you’ll need to be diligent. Try different combinations of VPN locations and online booking sites to compare the cheapest options, clear your cache and cookies, and search in an incognito browser. But you should also know that sometimes doing all of this extra work will also increase the price.
It’s not a guarantee that you will save money, NordVPN tells Fodor’s, but a VPN might highlight price discrepancies to give the consumer a better chance at booking at low costs. It may be worth checking if it’s cheaper to book virtually from the country you’re visiting.
VPNs also offer a secure way of browsing the internet, especially when you’re on public Wi-Fis (like hotels and airports). It prevents hacking and financial scams, and also hides your location and data, so websites can’t track you down.
There are many VPN providers in the U.S., including NordVPN, ExpressVPN, and Surfshark. These charge you for subscriptions and offer similar services, but may differ in the number of global servers, restrictions on devices, and speed. While there are free VPNs too, they may not be as effective.
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The thing you have to be aware of, at least for rental cars, is the fine print. Many rates for U.S. rental cars booked on European sites state that you may not pick up the car with a U.S. drivers license. I used to book US cars through a Portuguese version of a US major rental company, and get great rates. That worked reallywell till Covid, when I landed at the airport and they insisted I have foreign ID to get the car at my $30/day rate - - the same car at the US site was over $100/day, and that is what they insisted I pay.