Agent website misled customers over package price
Global Travel Group member, Sunmaster, has been reprimanded by the Advertising Standards Authority for advertising a package at a price that wasn’t available.
A customer had contacted the advertising watchdog after trying to book a package advertised on Sunmaster’s website in September which stated: "Accommodation Total: £105.00 … Total Holiday Cost: £332.55."
But when the customer called the sales team to complete the booking, he was told the price had gone up.
Halifax-based Sunmaster had tried to defend itself, saying prices displayed on the website were achievable but were displayed on a ‘prices from’ basis and could be impacted by a number of variables at the time of booking.
It said prices displayed on the website were produced by means of XML connections to its suppliers and that it was not possible for pricing and availability to be completely live.
It said the price could change between the enquiry and the completion of the booking.
But it could not offer any evidence that the quoted price was based on a genuine price, or any documentary evidence to show how often it updated prices on its website.
The ASA said if prices were subject to change and had limited availability, they should be described as ‘from’ prices.
"Because the ad did not present the price as a ‘from’ price, or make clear that the quoted price was subject to change, and because it did not clearly state when the price was last updated, or make clear how consumers would be able to find the most up-to-date prices, we concluded that it was misleading," it concluded.
It told Sunmaster to ensure it had adequate substantiation to show quoted prices were based on genuine prices available to consumers and to describe prices that were subject to change as ‘from’ and clearly state that these were subject to limited availability if that was the case.
It was also told to state when prices were last updated, when those prices were subject to change and to have processes in place to make sure prices were updated frequently.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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