Ad description
A website for Alternative Airlines, www.alternativeairlines.com, seen on 11 July 2017, provided facilities for consumers to search for and purchase holidays. A results page listed various holidays in line with search criteria entered. Once a customer clicked through the results page option “CONFIRM SELECTION”, they reached a details page where they were asked to enter passenger information and payment information. Upon entering those details and clicking “Continue to payment”, they reached a payment confirmation page. The details page also included a hyperlink titled “Terms and Conditions” that revealed pop-up text titled “TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR USE OF THIS WEBSITE” that stated, “Travel Services are offered for sale on the basis of availability provided directly or through electronic global distribution systems by the carriers and suppliers for whom Alternative Airlines acts as agent. On rare occasions carriers may fail to keep this availability updated in real time and in the event that capacity is no longer available at the quoted price they may cancel reservations before tickets have been issued. In this event Alternative Airlines will attempt to offer a suitable alternative or we will refund any payment received but Alternative Airlines and its affiliates will not accept any liability for the consequences of cancelled reservations”.
Issue
The complainant, who received confirmation receipt upon purchasing the holiday but was subsequently told that the price was no longer available and that they needed to pay an extra £100, challenged whether the ad was misleading.
Response
Alternative Airlines Ltd said they did not hold customer’s money without issuing tickets and they issued all tickets for customers within 24 hours of receipt of the transaction. They said their website included terms and conditions that stated on rare occasions they could cancel reservations in the event that capacity was no longer available at the quoted price. They believed that stating such incidents like that could occur was sufficient, as customers had to agree to these terms and conditions before completing their transaction.
Alternative Airlines said www.tianjinairlines.co.uk was a website operated by Alternative Airlines. They said flight prices, routes and availability shown on the tianjinairlines website were displayed through the general distribution system connection, Amadeus. They said Amadeus was reliant upon airlines keeping up-to-date availability and pricing through it. They said they did not control the ticketing time limits set by the airlines and did not delay the ticketing from the general distribution system. They said every flight booking had a ticketing time limit in which the tickets must be issued; otherwise the booking would be cancelled.
Alternative Airlines said that the complainant made the booking at 08:46 on 11th July for a flight with Tianjin Airlines. They said the complainant’s basic fare of £762.40 was available for purchase at the time of the transaction. However, when the Alternative Airlines customer service agent went to ticket the booking at 12:58 on 11th July, the fare had already expired as there was no more capacity available at the quoted price. They explained the reason for the delay on ticketing was that the customer service agent needed to manually check that individual booking as part of fraud checks. They said the ticketing agent then re-quoted the flight and the basic fare was priced at £852.40. They said the complainant was informed and offered an alternative to a full refund of their purchase. They said such experiences were out of their control as Alternative Airlines could not control the ticketing time limits that Tianjin Airlines imposed on its booking through Amadeus.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA noted that the price for the flight was absolute and without qualification. We therefore considered that while consumers were generally aware that flight pricing was fluid and the price of a specific flight could fluctuate over time, they would expect the flight to remain available at the same price throughout the customer journey, including after they had paid for it.
We understood that after paying for the flight and receiving a confirmation email, the complainant received an email later that day explaining that the price was no longer available and would have to either pay an extra £100 or accept a full refund. We understood that Alternative Airlines had not immediately ticketed the booking from the general distribution system because they were undertaking fraud checks, and after undertaking that ticketing, the booking had expired. We also noted the advertiser had included in their terms and conditions a statement to the effect of suggesting such incidents could occur. However, we considered that the link to the terms and conditions was not sufficient to override the overall impression that the flight was available at the price stated.
Because the ad suggested that the flight was available and at a specific price but there was a risk of the flight becoming unavailable at that price after a customer had paid, we concluded the ad was misleading.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 3.1 Marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so. (Misleading Advertising), 3.17 3.17 Price statements must not mislead by omission, undue emphasis or distortion. They must relate to the product featured in the marketing communication. (Prices) and 3.28 3.28 Marketing communications that quote a price for a featured product must state any reasonable grounds the marketer has for believing that it might not be able to supply the advertised (or an equivalent) product at the advertised price within a reasonable period and in reasonable quantities. In particular: (Availability).
Action
The ad must not appear again in the form complained about. We told Alternative Airlines Ltd to ensure their price statements did not mislead by advertising prices that they could not supply with certainty to their customers after bookings had been made.
