Upheld

The ASA understood that the complainant had made the decision to book a holiday for November 2011 from Unique Vacations during the "extra 100" promotion, because they had wanted to take advantage of the £100 off offer. However, when they subsequently discovered that the same discount was also available in the "late 100" promotion, they felt that they had been rushed into making their purchase too quickly.

We noted that both promotions offered £100 off the price of a holiday. Although we understood that the cheapest deal available in the "late 100" promotion was more expensive than the cheapest available in the "extra 100" promotion, we noted that the difference was relatively small. We noted that the travel period in the "extra 100" promotion was substantially longer than in the "late100" promotion, but we also noted that both included travel in October, November and December 2011 and that consumers who wished to travel in those months should have paid the same for their holiday whether they had booked during the "extra 100" or "late 100" promotion.

Although we noted that more people could take advantage of the "extra 100" because of the longer travel period, we considered that consumers who took advantage of the "extra 100" promotion for travel in 2011 had been encouraged to make a decision before it ended on 4 October which need not have been made until the "late 100" promotion ended on 11 October. Because we considered that those consumers had been deprived of time to make a more informed choice, we concluded that the ad breached the Code.

The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rule 3.31 (Availability).