ASA Adjudication on East Midlands Trains Ltd

Ad

A leaflet for East Midlands Trains was headed "LONDON - FROM JUST £11 EACH WAY - 210,000 TICKETS AVAILABLE". The reverse of the leaflet stated similar information and added "And with so many available, you'll have no problem booking yours. Simply book online up to 1800 the day before you travel to enjoy our lowest fares". It listed the price of fares to London from various stations, including Derby, Nottingham and East Midlands Parkway from £12 each way.

Issue

Two recipients believed the ad exaggerated the likelihood of being able to obtain fares at the lowest price and challenged whether it was misleading and whether the claims could be substantiated.  One of the recipients had tried to book a £12 ticket from Derby to London two weeks before he was due to travel but was told that there were none available because they were limited in number and subject to availability.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

East Midlands Trains said the ad reflected the fact that Advance fares were available from 12 weeks before travel until 6 pm on the day before travel.  They said that, in any 12-week booking period, they tended to have two million Standard Class Advance tickets available for sale at a range of eight prices, of which 210,000 were available at the advertised price.  They supplied spreadsheet data that showed the total number of reservable seats (Advance fares) that were available on journeys to or from London from the stations that were included in the offer and the percentage that had been available at the lowest price fares quoted in the ad.  The data showed that the percentage of reservable seats (Advance fares) available at the lowest prices ranged from 11.42% to 15.01% in the 12 weeks that followed the appearance of the ad.

East Midlands Trains said they had no current plans to use the claims in the same way again.

Assessment

Not upheld

The ASA noted that the claim that fares were available from £11 was made in the context of several bands of fares that applied in the East Midlands region; that the reverse of the leaflet summarised which lowest fares applied to which departure points and that the claim was made in the context of an offer where customers could book an Advance fare up to 12 weeks in advance of travel in a constantly moving 12-week period, but no further ahead than that.  We considered it was clear that the £11 fare applied to certain departure points only within the East Midlands region.  We noted that the spreadsheet data East Midlands Trains had supplied showed that more than 10% of tickets were available at the lowest price quoted in the ad in the 12 weeks that followed the time when one of the recipients had attempted to book a ticket.  We considered recipients would expect the lowest advertised fares to be available in sufficient quantities to ensure a reasonable prospect of obtaining a ticket at that price and that East Midlands Trains had shown that that was the case.  Because of that, we concluded that the claim was not misleading.

We investigated the ad under CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1 and 7.2 (Truthfulness) and 15.4 (Prices) but did not find it in breach.

Action

No further action necessary.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)