Get cheaper flights online with a VPN!
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
963 words · ~4 min read
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You might use a VPN for any number of reasons
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from accessing region blocked content
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to logging into your school's library from off campus
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to obfuscating your IP address
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when you're legally downloading backups
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of your movies and games.
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But did you know that a VPN can be used
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to potentially save thousands of dollars
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on your next airplane ticket?
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We are gonna show you guys how in just a few seconds,
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you can completely stymie the airlines algorithms
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and get the best possible price for your next trip.
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Oh, and by the way, it works for hotel and car rentals too.
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Now, full disclosure,
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this works with just about any VPN of your choosing,
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but we will be using Private Internet Access VPN,
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one of our sponsors here on the show.
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So if you like what you see,
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you can check them out at the link in the video description.
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To demonstrate how airlines and flight booking services
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show different search results
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depending on who you are and where you're from,
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we're gonna do a test where we book a flight
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from London to Denver and see if we get different prices.
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So the first thing we're gonna do
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is our regular old search as if we live in London.
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So if I type, show my location into Google,
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it's telling me I'm in London.
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Now, if I go to the Expedia UK site
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and book a flight from LHR to DEN
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for September 11th to 15th and choose business class,
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the cheapest result I get is a direct flight
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from Iberia Airlines for 5,935 pounds.
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That's over 7,500 US dollars.
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Pretty steep.
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Okay, so now let's see if we can get a better price.
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The first thing that you need to do
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is clear the cookies from your browser.
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Remember that cookies are messages
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that web servers pass to your browser
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as you surf the internet,
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creating a record of your activity online.
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Travel sites use cookies to help them drive ticket sales.
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So if you search for a flight,
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but then you leave without buying,
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the cookies will tell them that,
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and then the next time you search for that flight,
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they might increase the price that you see
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by maybe a small amount, 10, $20.
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At that point, human psychology compels you
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to buy the ticket right now out of fear
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that the price will continue to go up.
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Fortunately, we're not gonna have to worry about that.
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Unfortunately, you can get browser extensions
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that help you delete cookies as you go.
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We're using auto cookie delete,
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which clears all the cookies generated by a tab
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as soon as you close it,
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or it can dump them automatically as you browse.
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Cool.
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Next, we're gonna use our VPN
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to make it look like we're browsing from somewhere else.
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Now, there are differing theories
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as to what the best location to book flights from is.
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I've heard that booking from the US
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always gets the best deal.
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I've heard that booking from a less affluent place
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like the Midwest instead of the coast,
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or a less affluent country like India instead of Germany
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is the way to go.
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And then there are those who swear
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that booking from the destination country is the best,
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or even that it's the local currency
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of the airline itself that matters.
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Naturally, the only way to test these theories
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is to run your own experiments.
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And this is where your choice of VPN makes a difference,
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because there's an amount of VPN that has servers
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in lots of different locations all around the world.
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So you can see that PIA has a decently long list here,
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including some countries with multiple servers within them.
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So, since we're flying from London to Denver,
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I'm gonna choose the Denver server.
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So now I'm going back to my browser,
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making sure my cookies are cleared,
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and now when I tell Google to show me my location,
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you can see that it thinks I'm in Denver.
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Going back to Expedia, and searching for the same thing,
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or the same flight again, bam!
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There's that same nonstop flight from Iberia Airlines,
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this time for 49.16 US dollars instead of 7,700,
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a full $2,800 cheaper.
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That is all there is to it.
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If you travel a lot,
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obviously the savings can end up adding up pretty quickly.
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For us, booking from the destination
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definitely looks like a winning strategy,
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but let us know in the comments below,
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after you've tried it,
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if you've had success with some other way.
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Regardless of all of that,
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having a good VPN is definitely worth it,
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especially considering that this is only one
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of the many things that a VPN can be used for,
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and they're cheap.
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PIA can be had for as little as $2.91 a month.
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So be sure to check them out at the link below.
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You only have to save $2,000 on a flight,
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like once, to pay for an entire lifetime of PIA.
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So guys, let us know if you disliked this video,
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you can hit that button.
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But if you liked it, hit like, get subscribed,
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or maybe consider checking out where to buy the stuff
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we featured at the link in the video description.
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Also down there is our merch store,
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which has cool shirts like this one,
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and our community forum, which you should totally join.
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And leave a comment if you wanna see more videos
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about the uses of VPNs, just like this one.
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Maybe we could make this into like a series.