ASA raps Ambassador after ‘admin error’ on promotion

Ambassador Cruises has reviewed its internal pricing review policy after the wrong discount was featured in an advertising campaign.

 

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld a complaint about the ad, which appeared in an email from the cruise line on February 13.

 

It featured the subject line “Set Sail & Save – 30% Off Your Second Guest”.

 

The complainant, who believed the advertised discounts did not represent genuine savings, challenged whether the ad was misleading and could be substantiated.

 

Ambassador Cruise Holidays, trading as Ambassador Cruises, confirmed that an administrative error had been made and that the Norwegian Fjords cruise featured in the ad should not have been included.

 

The “30% Off” campaign was reviewed and approved internally in December 2024, and the Norwegian Fjord cruise was originally scheduled to be included in the promotion.

 

However, following an internal review, the fares for that particular cruise were reduced. As a result, the cruise should have been removed from the campaign before its launch as the price had already been reduced before publication of the promotion.

 

The ASA said: “The subsequent pricing under the campaign led to the pricing error featured in the ad. As soon as the error was identified and reviewed internally, the cruise was removed from the promotion on March 3.

 

“As a result of this complaint, they had reviewed their internal process and enhanced their internal pricing review policy, to mitigate opportunities for errors in future.”

The complaint was upheld as price statements “should not mislead by omission, undue emphasis or distortion”.

 

The ASA said: “We considered that consumers would understand those claims to mean that they would be making a genuine saving of 30% on the second ticket they purchased, against the usual selling price of the featured cruises.

 

“The complainant provided us with two images of the Norwegian Fjord cruise listing on the website, which showed the price before and after the complainant received the promotional email.

 

“Before the promotion, the individual price per person was stated as ‘From £879 per person’.

 

“After the promotion had begun, the cruise price appeared as ‘From £1,009 first person £709 second person’.

 

“We acknowledged Ambassador Cruises’ response that the cruise had been erroneously included in the promotion and welcomed their action to correct the error.

 

“However, because Ambassador Cruises were unable to supply evidence that showed that £1,009 was the established usual selling price of an individual ticket for the cruise, and that the price reduction represented a genuine saving for consumers, we concluded that the ad was likely to mislead.”

The ASA ruled that the ad must not appear again in that form and told Ambassador Cruises to ensure that future savings claims did not mislead by including prices that were not the usual selling price.

 

The company said in a statement to Travel Weekly: “Following receipt of the ASA enquiry, Ambassador Cruise Line conducted a full and thorough internal investigation into this matter and the promotional offer featured.

 

“Following the conclusion of this investigation, we can confirm that an administrative error was made on our part, as the cruise in question (A12505 - Springtime Norwegian Fjordlands), should not have been featured in the promotional offer on 13 February.

 

“We sincerely regret any confusion this may have caused and would like to assure the ASA, and indeed our valued guests and trade partners, that we take our obligations and compliance with the CAP Code extremely seriously.

 

“Ambassador can also confirm that it has reviewed its internal processes to further mitigate any opportunity for a similar occurrence in the future.”