OTA misled customers with BA and Virgin adverts
An online travel agent has been told off by advertising authorities for using website addresses in its adverts that were very similar to those of British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, but didn’t link to anywhere.
The Advertising Standards Authority said the ads, placed on paid-for Google searches by Edgware-based Travel Unravel Holidays in April, were likely to mislead customers.
The agency, which claims to have offices in London, New York and New Delhi, failed to respond ‘substantively’ when it was investigated by the ASA following a complaint, but simply said it was willing to make changes to the ads.
The websites used in the ads were britishairwaysticket.co.uk/ and virginatlantc.airlines-flight.co.uk/. Neither web address actually linked through to a website.
Text underneath stated ‘Get Great Flight Deals & Save Big. Pay Less & Travel More. Call now!’.
The ASA noted that in the Virgin ad the web address was missing a letter so stated "virginatlantc" rather than "virginatlantic".
"However, we considered that this was likely to be overlooked by consumers," it said.
It ruled the ads must not appear again in their current form and told Travel Unravel Holidays to make clear that its ads were for a third-party travel agency rather than for British Airways, Virgin Atlantic or any other airline.
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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