Mercury Holidays has been ordered not to use ‘from’ prices in advertising unless the rates are available at the time.
The ruling referring to two national press adverts published in June last year was made by the advertising watchdog today.
Two complaints were upheld against parent company Sunspot Tours after consumers said they were unable to find holidays at the advertised ‘from’ prices.
The adverts promoted second week free holiday deals ‘from’ £359 and third weeks free ‘from’ £329.
The ASA ruled: “Because we had not seen evidence to demonstrate that a reasonable quantity of holidays were available at the advertised ‘from’ price at the time the ad appeared and because the ad did not make sufficiently clear that the ‘from’ price was subject to change and had limited availability we concluded that the ad was misleading.
“The ads must not appear again in their current form.
“We told Sunspot Tours not to use ‘from’ prices if they were unable to demonstrate that the price in question was available to consumers at the time the ad appeared, in reasonable quantities and spread evenly across the advertised travel period.
“We also told them to ensure that, where holiday prices were subject to change and had limited availability that was made clear in a prominent statement.”
The operator had argued that the holidays were based on the cost and availability of flights from low cost airlines which changed daily.
Stressing that it had a contract with the room rates, supplements and special offers with the hotel, the company argued that due to the margins constantly changing, sometimes on a short term basis, there was “no way of showing what was on the system at the time the ad appeared except from screenshots of the total package”.
The operator also highlighted a disclaimer at the bottom of the adverts which advised that ‘from’ was subject to limited availability, to change and accurate at the date of print.
