On the Beach free airport lounge pass adverts ruled as ‘misleading’

On the Beach free airport lounge adverts have been ruled as misleading despite the OTA insisting that the majority of customers received access.

 

The company was told by the advertising watchdog that a “be a booking hero and get free airport longe access with On the Beach” advert on TV and two on its website must not appear again “in their current form”.

 

The sanction came as the Advertising Standards Authority upheld a complaint against the company. 

 

The complainant, who understood that there was a cap on the total number of free airport lounge passes that could be offered, challenged whether the adverts omitted “significant information” and were misleading. 

 

The ASA, ruling against that the adverts, said: “We told On The Beach to ensure that future ads did not imply to consumers that, as long as they complied with the conditions of the offer, they would receive free airport lounge passes if that was not the case.”

 

The sanction came despite On the Beach providing evidence showing that about 93% of bookings made between February and August received free airport lounge access as advertised.

 

Any customers who were unable to access the free airport lounge were compensated with a cash alternative above that stated in the terms and conditions, the company told the ASA.

 

As a result, the company did not consider that the cap on availability of free lounge passes was a significant condition that needed to be explicitly highlighted in its advertising.    

 

On the Beach argued that the “cap” on the availability of free airport lounge passes “was a reflection of the natural capacity limitations of airport lounges, rather than a cap imposed by On The Beach”. 

 

The firm highlighted that its terms and conditions explained that lounge passes were subject to capacity limitations, and that any eligible customers who could not receive free lounge access would be provided with a cash alternative. 

 

However, the ASA countered that after reviewing the data provided “the proportion of eligible bookings that received free lounge access was not distributed evenly throughout that time period”.

 

The watchdog added: “Whilst the number of eligible bookings that did not receive free lounge access was generally low between February and May, that number varied significantly during the more popular summer months. 

 

“For example, in the first week of June 2025, approximately 44% of bookings did not receive free lounge access. This fell to 3% of bookings in the second week of June but rose again to 13% in the third week. 

 

“There was therefore a significant chance of consumers missing out on the passes because of the cap.

 

“Because the overall impression of the ads was that as long as consumers complied with the conditions of the offer, they would receive free airport lounge passes, whereas that was not the case, and because the ads did not make clear that the cap meant passes were limited, and therefore consumers might not receive them, we concluded that the ads were misleading.”