I’ve always heard, “Use a VPN when booking your trips; it’s cheaper”.
(I’ve set this up as a poll so future users can quickly get the answer, but I’d appreciate explaining why in the comments, I want to understand the answer)
Where have you heard this before? How does using a VPN change the market rate of ticket prices?
I try: Country of origin, destination country, locations known to be cheap, and a couple other locations that I have the ability to use the local currency for payment.
That last point can sometimes be significant. Even if you find a cheaper location, the foreign exchange fees from your credit card can nullify any benefit.
here, here, here, and here, as well as here are just a few examples.
Of course, I’m not basing myself on these websites, I’ve just always heard it. Maybe it worked back in the day, and now it’s useless.
The basic idea behind it is that tickets fluctuate in price due to demand. That demand can vary due to destination-related (everyone wants to go to the same place at the same time) or origin-related (you live in a rich country, therefore you pay more for the same) reasons.
VPN allows you to circumvent these two issues. (allegedly)
They also tend to increase the price when you check the flights repeatedly, but that can easily be solved by clearing your cookies. But if you go further and go through the process of reserving that ticket, only to stop before payment, you have now raised the price of the ticket for everyone in the next few hours.