I tried using a VPN to score cheaper travel deals. Did it work?

When browsing hotels and flights for a summer vacation to London, I decided to do as the locals do – sort of.

I used a virtual private network (VPN) to change my location to the U.K. in hopes of finding a deal, a much-hyped travel hack.

“Travel sites often use dynamic pricing, meaning they show different prices depending on your location or browsing history,” a December 2025 blog post on NordVPN’s website reads. “If you switch to a server in another country or region, you can get the cheapest international flight deals with a VPN. Especially during the holiday season, when prices surge before Christmas and New Year, this trick can make a real difference.”

I decided to give it a go myself, but my search didn’t yield the results I hoped Here’s why.

For the purposes of my experiment, I searched Hotels.com for travel dates on an early June weekend using NordVPN. Virgin Hotels London-Shoreditch was listed at about $910 for the two-night stay. While the prices were displayed slightly differently on the U.S. site, the total was nearly the same at $906 (and appeared to be more expensive by booking across the pond).