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I'm trying to use Google Flights as is often recommended to me. I've got the language set to English and the currency set to AUD.

I've found a cheap flight from Bangkok to Europe and click on it. It sends me to a booking agent's site, in this case th.gotogate.com. But the site comes up in Thai and doesn't seem to have a language switch.

The site is in other languages, but if I manually change the language code in the URL it takes me to the site's start page. If I search for the same flight from there it's either not there or the price is a lot higher.

Is there a way to make sure that when you've set Google Flights to English that it will take you to the English language version of the booking site?

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  • Are you accessing Google from Thailand?
    – Michael Hampton
    Commented Nov 16, 2019 at 4:15
  • @MichaelHampton: Yes indeed.
    – hippietrail
    Commented Nov 16, 2019 at 4:16
  • You might try going to google.com/ncr (which stands for no country redirect). This puts a cookie in your browser that tells Google to not redirect to country-specific Google sites. Not sure this will help at all with Google Flights but it may help you with search.
    – Michael Hampton
    Commented Nov 16, 2019 at 4:18
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    Sorry, I should have been more specific. I mean close any browser tabs containing Google Flights, open a new tab, return to Google Flights in that tab, and then repeat the search.
    – Michael Hampton
    Commented Nov 16, 2019 at 4:43
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    I might just clear all my Google cookies. I've just spent the last few minutes experimenting with Google Flights and watched it suddenly jack up all the prices for everything when I repeated a search.
    – Michael Hampton
    Commented Nov 16, 2019 at 4:53

2 Answers 2

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You have to change the country in the bottom of the Google Flights page, as you always get redirected to the version of the booking website for your chosen country:

Country: Thailand Contry: Australia

(Note that the currency you set in Google Flights influences neither the language of the OTA website nor the currency you are charged in.)

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    Ah! I didn't think of changing that since I'd learned on this site a few years back that agencies have a concept of "ticketing origin" or something that affects the price. So I assumed it would put the price up and didn't assume it would affect the language.
    – hippietrail
    Commented Nov 20, 2019 at 16:10
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    Yes, the point of sale can change the ticket price sometimes, but often, it just affects the currency you're paying in or the language of the booking website. (If there is a price difference, sometimes Google Flights detects and displays that automatically – e. g. for LATAM, you are often given a link to the airline's Chilean/Brazilian/... site and a link to your local site, with different prices.)
    – Mophotla
    Commented Nov 21, 2019 at 17:16
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Is there a way to make sure that when you've set Google Flights to English that it will take you to the English language version of the booking site?

No (you can't even make sure that the prices displayed on Google Flights are correct…), but you can increase the likelihood of viewing an English version using some computer (e.g. via VPN or VNC) located in some English-speaking country.

Regarding the case of http://th.gotogate.com/, scroll down and click on one of the flags to change the language:

enter image description here

or directly click on https://ie.gotogate.com/

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    I tried to mention in my question but I guess not clearly enough that I know I can change language once I get to the site, but when I do I can no longer find the deal that Google Flights sent me to book.
    – hippietrail
    Commented Nov 16, 2019 at 14:13
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    @hippietrail I see, sorry must have misread it. How about using Google translate on the page? Typically it's good enough to approximate most of the meaning.
    – Franck Dernoncourt
    Commented Nov 16, 2019 at 14:35
  • I thought I mentioned that too, but maybe that was in the comments. It messes up too many things from Thai to English to add an element of risk of doing the wrong thing or not being able to figure out how to opt out of a useless fee, etc.
    – hippietrail
    Commented Nov 16, 2019 at 14:37
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    @hippietrail ok if there is redirect one could attempt to go on on ie.gotogate.com before clicking on the flights on Google flights. Otherwise, one could try changing the GPS location in Google Chrome. If that doesn't work, I believe one will have to go through another computer located in another country, and even though it's not guaranteed to work if Google flights still directly points to th.gotogate.com
    – Franck Dernoncourt
    Commented Nov 16, 2019 at 14:55
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    @hippietrail My apologies for the incorrect information
    – Franck Dernoncourt
    Commented Nov 21, 2019 at 17:43

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