Don't know if TravelBuzz is the right place for this - moderators please feel to move!

I tried to use Tripadvisor yesterday to find and book some hotel accommodation for a forthcoming trip.

I am registered with Tripadvisor, as a UK user, but happen to be in Germany at the moment.

Everything was normal when I was looking at hotel reviews, and up to the point when I chose a hotel and put in my dates. But when I clicked on the "show prices" link Tripadvisor insisted on taking me to German booking sites, and there seemed to be no way of changing this behaviour.

It seems their system looks at IP addresses, and lets IP addresses override the user's settings (just as well I wasn't trying to use Tripadvisor in China!). Of course while an IP address might provide some clue as to the user's location it's by no means definite - Google used to send me to google.de when I was using T-mobile hotspots in the UK (they've fixed this now).

I've contacted Tripadvisor, and had a response from someone who did not seem to have the foggiest idea of what I was on about.

Have others encountered this? Is there a work-round? (Don't say "Learn German". I do speak German, but don't want to pay for my hotel bookings in a foreign currency and pay double conversion charges)

Yes, they are trying to locate you by your IP (which, by the way, is a very imperfect process). Specifically regarding Trip Advisor, there must be, on the extreme right top of the screen, a small flag where you could select your language/region.

Even worse are the sites (usually american) that blocks you from logging/navigating when you're acessing them from abroad.

IIRC there are simple ways to spoof your location.

My problem is HULU won't play with my ad-blockers and tracking-blockers running. Oh well.

On TripAdvisor, you can choose your country from the little flag in the top right-hand corner; clicking on the flag that is on display will bring up a menu of flags.

This works while you're doing the searching; when it comes to paying, or even requesting prices, the site may revert back to that of the country that you're in (or that the site thinks you're in, or ought to be in...). When this happens, it ought to work if you alter the url manually in the address bar; so, if you're at <...tripadvisor.de[blah-blah-blah]> and you want the UK site, change it to <...tripadvisor.co.uk[blah-blah-blah]>, leaving the "blah-blah-blah" part unchanged. This ought to allow you to reserve and pay using the UK site.

This sort of thing is not unique to TripAdvisor. Why do websites that do this? Do they think that they are providing a service to their users? Or is there some perceived advantage to themselves?

I had the Union Flag selected. It made no difference.

Tripadvisor isn't a booking site. It just acts as a search engine - it searches booking sites and then brings them up in separate windows. If it thinks you're in Germany then it sends you to German booking sites - you don't get any choice in the matter, they just pop up. Some (like booking.com) will let you switch language and currency once you've got there, but you can't - for example - switch from expedia.de to expedia.co.uk because you will lose the results of Tripadvisor's search.

Some others - like Google - have stopped doing this. Used to drive me crazy when they would send me to google.pl or google.lt based on my IP address.

Oh well. It's worked for me for the UK versus Australia, sending me to the web pages that I wanted to go to. Perhaps it doesn't any more.