Eurostar has been censured by the advertising watchdog for not providing sufficient seats to support a £39 fare promotion.
The Advertising Standards Authority told the Channel Tunnel high speed passenger rail service “to ensure that when using ‘from’ price claims in future, a significant proportion of the advertised fares were available at the advertised price”.
Eurostar International told the ASA that a total of 39,000 seats had been available at the advertised ‘from’ rate across the advertised routes.
The company believed that was a “significant number of seats”, and that consumers would have had a reasonable chance of obtaining one at the advertised ‘from’ price.
But the ASA investigated after a consumer complained that they could only find one seat from London to Paris at the advertised price.
The promotion in July, for travel from August last year, was found to be misleading.
Data provided by Eurostar in response to the ASA showed that the £39 fares had made up a “very small” percentage of available tickets for travel between London and Paris and vice-versa.
“We therefore considered that Eurostar had not demonstrated that a significant proportion of tickets between London to Paris and Paris to London had been available ‘from’ £39 during the promotional period,” the ASA ruled.
The ASA “considered that that consumers would understand the claim ‘treat yourself to a European getaway from just £39 each way with a summer getaway in August or September’ to mean that a significant proportion of fares to the advertised locations of Paris, Brussels or Lille would be available to purchase at £39 throughout August and September 2023.
“We also considered that consumers would expect to find the tickets available at the ‘from’ price across a range of dates and times within that period, and that they would have a reasonable chance of obtaining a seat at the advertised price.
“The complainant had been unable to purchase tickets from London to Paris at the advertised price of £39, so we first assessed the availability of the ‘from’ priced tickets for the return journey on that route.”
The terms and conditions of the promotion stated that, as of July 12 there had been 9,500 standard class seats available on both the outward and return journey at the stated ‘from’ price, for travel between August 16 and December 13.
The ASA added: “We then reviewed the number of seats available on the two other routes included in the promotion. The terms and conditions stated that as of 12 July 2023 there had been 6,500 seats available from London to Brussels and Lille, and 13,500 seats available from Brussels and Lille to London.
“Data provided by Eurostar again showed that the £39 fares had made up a very small percentage of the total number of seats available for standard class travel for those routes in the identified timeframe.
“We therefore considered that Eurostar had also not demonstrated that a significant proportion of tickets for the London to Brussels and Lille routes had been available ‘from’ £39 during the promotional period.
“We acknowledged that the terms and conditions of the promotion had stated the number of seats available, and that they were subject to availability.
“However, because we considered that a significant proportion of tickets had not been available at the ‘from’ price, we concluded that the claim ‘Treat yourself to a European getaway from just £39 each way with a summer getaway in August or September’ was therefore misleading.”
A Eurostar spokesperson said: “We value customer feedback, including complaints and take great care in the way that we word our advertising and the number of tickets that we offer at the promotional price during particular time periods.
“We understand and take on board the ASA’s ruling which is related to seat availability in part of the promotional period, and we are committed to ensuring that this scenario does not occur again.”