HolidayGems holiday price advert ruled as ‘misleading’ after extra charges added.

HolidayGems has been criticised by the advertising watchdog for adding unexpected extra charges to the cost of a Canary Islands holiday.

 

The Travcorp Holdings OTA blamed a “technical error” for not making clear that the price could change.

 

However, the Advertising Standards Authority ruled that the advertised price of £1,740.73 was misleading and should not appear again after a customer was required to pay an additional £34 and a £4.95 transaction fee to complete the booking.

 

The case was based on a compliant from a consumer, who booked a hotel and flights package to Gran Canaria after seeing the price on the HolidayGems website in December last year which stated a total cost of £1,740.73.

 

But the customer challenged whether the price claim was misleading when told that the price stated in the advert was no longer available and they would have to pay additional costs.

 

HolidayGems admitted that the advert should have included a qualification that it was a ‘from’ price. 

 

The Chester-based firm told the ASA that due to a technical error, the ‘from’ price qualification had inadvertently been omitted from holiday listings when consumers accessed them via their internal website search tool. 

 

HolidayGems said it would fix the error, which had occurred because its website had been redeveloped.

 

While the firm acknowledged the technical error, it believed their processes had provisions in place which made it "explicitly clear" that the advertised price was a quote that was subject to change. 

 

The company told the ASA that the advert was described as a ‘holiday summary’ and not a ‘booking’ and that customers had to accept its terms and conditions before proceeding on the website. 

 

Consumers had the option to cancel if there was a change in price because no booking would have been completed before the finalised cost was confirmed.

 

But the ASA, upholding the complaint, said it considered consumers would understand the price claim ‘Total Cost: £1740.73’ to mean that amount was the total they would pay for that holiday, notwithstanding the cost of any optional extras. 

 

“We understood the complainant was subsequently informed that the price had increased and that they were required to pay an additional £34 as well as an additional £4.95 transaction fee to complete the booking,” the authority noted.

 

“We acknowledged that the claim in the ad was a quoted price for a particular holiday and not a confirmed booking. However, the fact that it was not a confirmed booking was not sufficient to avoid the price claim misleading consumers in the event that it was not available. 

 

“We considered that contacting a consumer to request further payment once an online booking process had been completed would have rendered that quoted price claim misleading. 

 

“Additionally, amending the price once a payment had been authorised, as we understood the complainant had done, would again have rendered the quoted price misleading.

 

“While we acknowledged that holiday prices available through third parties were liable to change, consumers should nevertheless have been able to rely on prices quoted to them when booking, and advertisers were responsible for ensuring that stated prices were genuine and did not mislead.

 

“Because the holiday was not available for the stated ‘Total Cost’ in the ad, we concluded that the price claim was misleading.”

 

Ruling that the advert must not appear again in its current form, the ASA told HolidayGems “to ensure that their price claims were based on genuine prices available to consumers and to ensure they clearly stated that their prices were quotes that were subject to change”.