Advertising by Southall Travel for flights to Mumbai from £346 has been banned.
The advertising watchdog took action after two people complained after being told that the flights were not available as the price advertised on the long-haul operator’s website.
Southall Travel argued that the adverts had stated that the flights were ‘from’ the quoted price and were subject to availability and extremely limited.
The operator said the prices for the Mumbai flights had been uploaded on to its system by the airlines involved at a lower price than the price quoted in the adverts – therefore it believed that the advertised price was achievable.
But ruling that the adverts must not appear again in their current form, the Advertising Standards Authority said: “We told Southall Travel to ensure that their advertising made clear that quoted prices were accurate at the time of the last update, the date of which should be stated, and that prices were subject to change.
“We also told them to ensure that they held suitable substantiation to show that the quoted price was based on a genuine price available when the price was last updated and to have processes in place to make sure prices were updated frequently.”
Upholding the complaints, the ASA said: “We considered that Southall Travel had not been able to demonstrate that the quoted prices were based on a genuine price available when the prices were last updated or how frequently they were updated.”
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