Two major tour operators have had adverts banned for misleading consumers about discounted holiday deals.
An email from Jet2holidays promising £100 off per person misled customers by not including all the information they needed to make an informed choice about whether or not they were making a meaningful saving, the advertising watchdog ruled.
The email promised £100 off per person on all holidays and city breaks on bookings made between January 14 and 17.
Jet2holidays said the “dynamic nature” of holiday pricing meant it was not possible to compare periods on a direct like-for-like basis, but provided figures which it said showed that 63% of holidays were more than £100 cheaper than the pre-sale prices on January 13.
The company attributed the cases where the discount had been eclipsed by an increase in the price over the period to dynamic pricing and the fact that prices tended to increase as the date of travel approached.
Jet2holidays admitted that due to an administrative error by a member of its marketing team, the email footer did not reflect the accurate start and closing dates of the promotion.
The Advertising Standards Authority said: “We considered that consumers were generally aware that holiday pricing was fluid and that the price of a specific holiday could fluctuate over time, sometimes within the space of a day or less, based on a number of factors.
“In that context we considered that, despite having an appreciation of these price fluctuations, in the absence of further information about the basis of any savings claims made, consumers would be unable to have an informed understanding of whether or not the discounted price constituted a genuine, meaningful saving.”
The ASA ruled that the ads must not appear again, adding: “We told Jet2holidays not to make savings claims unless they were genuine and meaningful to consumers, and to ensure they included material information relating to the basis of the savings claim and correctly identified the period of sale in their marketing communications.”
The ASA found in a separate ruling that Tui discounts to be misleading for failing to make clear they were online prices compared with in-store prices.
Two websites, for Tui UK’s First Choice and Thomson brands, offered deals on hotels for a £162 and £180 per person discount last August.
Tui said an online discount was often applied immediately to reflect that it did not need to pay commission to travel agents for holidays sold via its websites.
Tui said the claimed discounts were “fair, honest and not misleading” because the adverts indicated to the consumer that they would obtain a package holiday at the value of £1,800 for a lesser price.
But the ASA said the basis of the discount claims was not sufficiently clear in the adverts and were therefore likely to mislead consumers about the nature of the saving on offer.
It said: “We told Tui UK, trading as Thomson and First Choice, to ensure that future ads referring to discounted prices made clear the basis of the price comparison, and that they held evidence to substantiate such savings claims.”
In a third case, the ASA rejected a complaint against Tui UK over a Thomson £100 extra online discount offered with a special sale code.
The ASA said: “We considered consumers would generally understand that factors such as room type and the time of flights could have an impact on the price quoted for what appeared to be a similar holiday.
“Therefore, because the mechanism for the offer was that consumers received £100 off the price of the holiday than they would otherwise have paid if they did not apply the discount code, we concluded that the ad did not breach the [advertising] code.”
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