ASA Adjudication on Associated Newspapers Ltd

Ad

A sales promotion for discounted holidays included a front-page flash which stated "Fabulous family holidays FROM JUST £15 SEE FOUR-PAGE PULLOUT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PAPER". Smallprint stated "Per person. Based on four sharing. Service charge and conditions apply".

Text on the front of the enclosed pullout stated "Get away with the family to almost 100 superb locations across Britain, only with the Daily Mail … A holiday in a standard caravan could be yours from just £15 per person … all the comforts of home and all the facilities of coastal holiday parks in England, Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Wight. Our full list of participating parks is printed overleaf …”. Inside the pullout was a full list of participating holiday parks which included the applicable service charges and the cost of entertainment passes for each.

Terms and conditions to the offer stated "AVAILABILITY: Holidays in this offer are subject to availability at the time of your booking online or processing of your postal booking. Not all holiday parks will be available on all dates ... Service charges are applied by holiday parks to cover the cost of pre-arrival cleaning and preparation of your holiday home ... Service charges start at £5 per unit, per night and will be charged to you by your park in advance of your arrival … PARKS offer day and evening entertainment programmes and charge for optional Entertainment & Clubroom passes. Charges start at £3 per person per short break. Although optional, please note that Entertainment/Clubroom passes may be required for access to facilities such as swimming pools, bars, restaurants, etc …”.

Issue

1. One complainant challenged whether the claim "holidays from just £15 per person" was misleading and could be substantiated, because they understood that there was an additional, compulsory service charge for each of the parks advertised.

2. A second complainant, who had enquired on the first day of the offer and been told that there were no holidays available for the month of August, challenged the availability of the offer.

3. The ASA challenged whether the ad was misleading because it did not make clear that the Entertainment and Clubroom Passes were required to access other facilities in addition to on-site entertainment at some of the parks.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

1. The Daily Mail said the £15 price was based on a minimum of four people sharing, had been negotiated across all the holiday parks in the promotion and represented a significant discount against brochure prices. They said qualifying text on the front page, explanation in the body of the promotion and the terms and conditions of the offer all made clear that service charges and conditions applied to the £15 rate.

The Daily Mail said because the service charges varied from park to park and related to the preparation of the holiday homes and the cost of utilities, they were chargeable per unit per night and therefore could not be expressed as a per person rate. They said if a service charge was split to a per person basis it could unfairly penalise smaller groups who would pay more per head.

2. The Daily Mail said the offer covered 20 start dates for short break holidays from 31 May to 10 September 2010 at 87 locations. They said there were more than 50,000 holidays available at the promotional prices at the start of the offer. They said August was the most popular month for holidays and all availability for August was exhausted in the first two days of the offer.

The Daily Mail said text in the centre of the four-page pullout encouraged readers to select a wide choice of dates and locations: text on the guide box and the postal application form made clear that readers should select at least four parks and dates to avoid disappointment, and stated that June and September were less busy than other times. They said their objective was to maximise both redemption of the offer and occupancy at the parks. The Daily Mail submitted a spreadsheet which they said showed the total availability at the beginning of the offer. Based on their previous experience they believed those levels of availability would be more than adequate to fulfil the anticipated demand for the offer.

3. The Daily Mail said the promotion made clear that, in some cases, entertainment and clubroom passes may be required to access non-entertainment facilities such as swimming pools, restaurants and bars. The Daily Mail said those passes were an optional purchase and were designed to cover the cost of entry to the onsite entertainment programmes as provided by each park. They pointed out that entertainment varied from park to park as did the scale and configuration of clubrooms and venues; some parks might only have one entertainment room with a bar and might therefore charge for a pass to enter that venue. They said that would only occur in exceptional circumstances, however, because no operator would want to restrict the opportunity to sell food and drink to customers.

The Daily Mail said full details of what was included under entertainment for each park was set out on the website. They said customers could select a park that made no charge for entertainment, choose a half-price option, pay for all the entertainment facilities or, if they wished to use the park as a touring base as many did, not purchase a pass at all.

They said they had no intention of misleading their readers or potential customers or of creating any disappointment with their offers. Their UK holiday park readers-offers in 2010 had produced holidays for over 100,000 readers and the complaints received by the ASA were exceptional in finding the promotion unclear or misleading.

Assessment

1. Upheld

The ASA considered that the advertised headline price of "from ... £15 per person" would be interpreted by consumers to mean that some holidays would be available at the minimum advertised price of £15. However, we noted that for each of the holiday parks an additional, compulsory service charge of between £5 and £6.50 was also levied per unit per night, and we therefore considered that the headline price stated in the ad should have included all non-optional charges that customers would have to pay. Because it was not possible for consumers to take up the offer at the advertised from price of £15 we concluded that on this point the promotion was misleading.

On this point the promotion breached CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation), 7.1, 7.2 (Truthfulness), 15.1 and 15.4 (Prices).

2. Upheld

We noted that the Daily Mail believed that August would be the most popular month for the holiday offer. However, we also noted from the documentation provided by the Daily Mail that there was significantly less availability in August than during the rest of the offer period. We also noted that all availability for August had been exhausted in the first two days of the offer. We considered that there was insufficient availability in August to ensure that consumers had a reasonable prospect of taking up the offer during the peak holiday period, and we therefore considered that the promotion should have made clear that there was limited availability for the month of August in order to avoid disappointing consumers. Because it did not, we concluded that the promotion was misleading.

On this point the promotion breached CAP Code clauses 7.1, 7.2 (Truthfulness), 27.4 (Sales promotion rules) and 30.1 (Availability).

3. Upheld

We noted that for each park the promotion referred to an "entertainment pass" or "clubroom pass" and stated its cost. We considered that consumers would infer that those were optional passes that would allow them access to specific entertainment events or facilities. However, we noted that the terms and conditions of the offer stated "... please note that Entertainment/Clubroom passes may be required for access to facilities such as swimming pools, bars, restaurants, etc ..." and we considered that the fact that the entertainment passes might be required in order to access other amenities was a significant condition that was likely to influence readers understanding of the offer. We therefore considered that it should have been made clear in the body of the promotion, and because it was not we concluded the promotion was misleading.

On this point the promotion breached CAP Code clauses 7.1, 7.2 (Truthfulness) and 34.1a (Significant conditions for promotions).

Action

The promotion must not appear again in its current form.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)