Planning a road trip, but you are low on budget? Well, we have got you covered. You can save a lot of money by renting a car with the cheapest deals. However, finding the best car rentals, cheap flights, and affordable hotels is not easy. There are various factors that these companies take into consideration to show you flight prices, car rental deals, and more.
While on vacation, most people believe that shopping for car rentals is an absolute waste of time, thinking that all websites offer the same rates universally. But that is far from the truth.
Like flights and hotels, car rentals have different prices depending on the company and location. Even if we just focus on one factor, location, car rentals can help you save a lot of money.
Use a VPN to Find Cheap Car Rental Deals
Whether you are in need of a car for a business trip or a vacation, you can find cheap deals by using a VPN. There are plenty of good cheap VPN services that you can use to find the lowest price possible on car rental deals. A VPN is a Virtual Private Network that allows you to change your virtual location.
In case you don’t know, car rental websites, hotel booking sites like Kayak, Expedia, and more use various techniques to determine your location. This way, you are shown prices according to the rates in different regions. Some of these techniques include:
- IP address tracking: Websites track your IP address to identify your exact geo-location.
- Cookie tracking: Rental website’s cookies keep track of your browsing activities and online preferences by determining your browsing history.
- GPS tracking: Some websites also use the GPS location of the device to show you deals near your location.
- Geo-Location Coding: Using HTML5 coding, websites can also track your exact location to show you specific deals.
By using a VPN, you can change your IP address to see prices in other regions. Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) offer plenty of servers across the world that you can connect to easily. When you connect to a VPN server, it masks your real IP address and gives you a new IP address of the country you are connected to. This way, your virtual location changes.
For example, you can connect to a US server, and it will assign you an American IP address. Now when you visit a car rental website, it will think you are trying to search for cars from within the US, despite being located elsewhere.
Let’s suppose you are planning a vacation. All you need to do is connect to a different country server and browse through prices. The best part about VPNs is that you can see prices from different regions and choose the one that offers the best saving. For instance, residents in the US may find cheaper rates as compared to the residents of Canada.
Save Upto 60% on Car Rental Deals – Example
I decided to use a VPN to find the cheapest car rental deals online. I first tried Kayak and checked for the cheapest car rental deal available. I connected to a US VPN server and added all the required information. The cheapest deal was at $50 on Dodge Charger with free cancellation.
I then searched for the same destination and duration, but this time I connected to a Spanish VPN server. Not only did it show me expensive options, but the cheapest deal rose to 103 Euros (USD 115). The cheapest rental deal was of Toyota Camry with free cancellation.
The car offered was definitely different from the first deal I got in the US region, but the cheapest deal was nonetheless still very expensive as compared to the results obtained on the Spanish VPN server.
We tried another car rental site and this time decided to compare prices of the same cars. First, we connected to the US VPN server and checked for the cheapest rental deals on Sixt. It offered Toyota Camy with unlimited mileage at $151 per day (excluding taxes).
We then connected to a Spanish VPN server and checked Sixt again with the same travel details, and the cheapest deal rose to $276 per day for the same car with unlimited mileage.
Conclusion
So, using a VPN, you can save upto 40-50% on car rental with this simple trick. And the most amazing thing is that it is not just limited to car rentals as you can use the same for cheap airline tickets and hotel bookings too.
All you need to do is get a VPN and download it on your device. Connect to a server location of your choice and visit the preferred car rental website. Enter your travel details. You can connect to 2-3 different locations and compare prices. Once you find the cheapest deal, you can book a car rental and save money.
To save money, you can also use a VPN and check local, smaller rental websites for better deals. Overall, the trick to getting the cheapest deal is to make it look like you are booking the car from another location using a VPN. Safe travels!
