British holidaymakers are being charged hundreds of pounds more than overseas customers by travel firms presenting higher prices on UK websites, according to research commissioned by cybersecurity company NordVPN.
From car hire and cruises to ferries and theme parks, consumers are frequently being presented with wildly different prices depending on where they log on.
Using the Indonesian website for Agoda.com resulted in a £461 saving on a two-week holiday in Bali – meaning that UK users are paying 35% more.
NordVPN’s researchers used its Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to make it look to websites like they were not in the UK. They discovered savings across a range of well-known travel sites likeHotels.com, Booking.com and Agoda.com, for a variety of countries, including Greece, France, Indonesia and Australia.
What is a VPN? A VPN disguises your IP address, while improving privacy and security. You select a country and NordVPN ensures that’s where websites think you are. VPN users are then able to see the differing content — and prices — shown to overseas consumers.
Using a VPN, a two-week stay for two adults at the Ayodya Resort in Bali booked on the Indonesian Agoda.com site cost £1,314 – £461 cheaper than the £1,774 quoted for users on the UK site.
The biggest saving came from booking a trip for a family of four to Disneyland, Paris, through the Disneylandparis.com French site. The two-week trip cost £17,342 – £1,540 less than the £18,822 price quoted to users of the UK site.
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