Flights are unbelievably expensive at the moment, with many airliners offering their highest airfares in years.
Rising jet fuel prices, staff shortages due to pandemic disruptions and a lack of new aircraft are creating a perfect storm of problems for passengers.
But there are hidden ways to utilize technology that can save you thousands on a family vacation — from simple hacks like clearing your browser history, to more advanced techniques like using a VPN.
The day you book your flight matters too, with experts at Expedia claiming that booking on a Sunday can chop up to 15 percent off your overall costs.
Scroll down for our results in full:
Can a VPN save you money on your vacation?
Seasoned travelers have claimed for years that using a VPN to appear as if you are in a different country can find better deals by showing local rather than tourist prices.
This is because VPN software routes your internet requests via servers in other countries, so it appears like you are abroad, and airlines, car rental companies and hotels often vary their prices by where people are buying from.
Clearing your browser also gives ‘trackers’ in sites less information to work with.
To test out the deals on offer, DailyMail.com used two laptops simultaneously to compare prices in different countries to vacation shopping from the US.
We looked for vacations in late summer/early autumn for a family of four.
On one laptop, we booked vacations from within the US, on a weekday and without clearing out cache. On the other, we implemented all the aforementioned hacks.
Dreams Riviera Resort and Spa, Cancun – two weeks
Normal price $6,940 — price using VPN and tech hacks $6,025.43
Saving: $914.57
Booking via VPN is considerably cheaper (Picture: Rob Waugh)
Booking from the US costs more (Picture: Rob Waugh)
Page Hotels, London – two weeks
Normal price $11,602 — price using VPN and tech hacks $9,796
Saving: $1,805
Compared side by side, the US price comes out far higher (Picture: Rob Waugh)
The UK price comes out lower (Picture: Rob Waugh)
Three nights at Disneyland Paris, three-night stay at Disney Hotel New York, including park visits
Normal price $3,604 — price using VPN and tech hacks $3,318.50
Saving: $286.26
Booking ‘locally’ via VPN helps save (Picture: Rob Waugh)
Booking from the US is more expensive (Picture: Rob Waugh)
Ausonia Hungaria Hotel, Venice, Italy – one week
Normal price $6,023 — price using VPN and tech hacks $5,143
Saving: $880
The price, if you access via VPN, is quite different (Picture: Rob Waugh)
Accessing from the US is considerably more expensive (Picture: Rob Waugh)
Car rental — Nissan Juke, Edinburgh Airport, UK – ten days
Normal price $891.89 — price using VPN and tech hacks $692.46
Saving: $199.43
It is considerably cheaper to book locally (Picture: Rob Waugh)
And less expensive to book ‘locally’ using a VPN (Picture: Rob Waugh)
So can you save money?
DailyMail.com found that you can definitely save hundreds of dollars on car hire and hotels – but you do have to shop around, and a VPN isn’t a ‘magic bullet.’
Be aware that deals vary minute by minute, computer by computer, so replicating the savings we found might be tricky or even impossible.
Searching using a VPN can take a while to track down a decent deal (and it’s worth checking to ensure that extras are added to the bill before you buy, just in case your ‘deal’ turns out to be less good than it appears).
It’s also worth noting that you can sometimes save by booking via the local website (i.e., the .fr domain for a French site rather than .com).
It’s worth paying for VPN software as the ‘free’ VPNs on offer are often dubious and sometimes outright criminal, with cases where free VPNs have sold user data or even installed malware on devices.
It would help if you also shopped around – what works on one date might well not work for another.
It’s fairly common to find small savings, such as five percent – you need to work a bit harder to find larger savings.
Make sure to clear your browser’s history before starting shopping, and if you have an account with Hotels.com, for example, don’t log into it: the best prices will be offered to a ‘blank slate.’
The biggest savings tend to be found in countries with a relatively large spending power gap – so Mexico is a good place to look, whereas Canada (for example) is not.
It is also well worth checking out the vacation season dates in other countries.
If you book ‘out of season’ from the US, you can still be charged higher rates, whereas if you use a VPN and appear to be a local booking out of season, you can find lower prices.
Marijus Briedis, Chief Technology Officer at NordVPN, told DailyMail.com: ‘When we plan vacations through booking platforms, we’re given the impression that technology has our backs and any hotel, flight or car hire deal presented will be as cheap as it could be.
‘The truth is that while these sites’ online tracking and algorithms can help us home in on holiday offers faster than ever before, they can also sometimes raise and lower prices according to the spending power of different countries.’
He added: ‘For Americans, this means there’s a risk of being shortchanged with every click you take, compared with the prices quoted to travelers from other countries.
‘The way to avoid these differences is to shop smartly and stealthily on booking sites.
‘Clearing your browser history will give tracker bots less information to work with, and using a VPN to make it look like you’re not in the US will let you see if the price you’re quoted is the same the world over.’
