Probe into web price claim

Travel agent Nicola Henry has reported Thomson to the Office of Fair Trading and the Advertising Standards Authority, claiming its latest television adverts are misleading.

Henry has taken issue with Thomson’s £1.6 million TV advertising campaign which boasts: “Web prices on the high street,” claiming customers are left thinking any agent can match the web price.

In order to do this, she claims independents will end up selling at a loss while Thomson in-house stores will be able to swallow the discount. Henry, a director of Ruddington Travel in Nottingham and a tourism lecturer at Derby College, claims this is a breach of the 1998 Competition Act.

She said: “There are laws to protect the little fish.”

Thomson said the advert had been cleared by the relevant authorities before being broadcast. The OFT and ASA are looking into the complaint.