Ad description
A website for airline tickets, visited on 10 August 2011, included a list of destinations with a "from" price next to each, including "Sibiu from £169*" and "Timisoara from £169*". The asterisked text stated "Economy Class return fares including taxes, fees and charges".
Issue
One complainant, who was unable to obtain return flights to Sibiu or Timisoara for the advertised prices from airports including those in London and Manchester, challenged whether tickets had been available at those prices.
Response
Deutsche Lufthansa AG (Lufthansa) stated that the advertised prices were for the lowest available return fare (class L) and they provided information regarding the number of tickets sold for that fare from Birmingham, Manchester and London to Sibiu and Timisoara in August. They pointed out that class L return tickets from Birmingham, Manchester and London (all airports) to Sibiu had constituted 40% of all tickets sold in August and that class L return tickets to Timisoara had constituted 15% of all tickets sold in the same month. They explained that they operated a very complex revenue management system and that ticket availability was constantly changing but that they believed the information provided regarding ticket sales was a strong indicator that the advertised fares had been available and had been purchased by consumers.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA noted that the ad listed several destinations and accompanied each with a "from" price but that information regarding the relevant travel period was not included amongst the conditions of the offer. We considered that in the absence of more detailed conditions, consumers would expect the advertised fares to be available in sufficient quantities to ensure a reasonable chance of tickets being available for any combination of outbound and inbound flights reservable at the time they saw the offer.
We noted that the evidence provided by Lufthansa showed that some tickets for flights from Birmingham, Manchester and London to Sibiu and Timisoara had been sold at the advertised prices in August. Whilst we accepted that some customers had been able to take advantage of the offer, we noted that the evidence had combined tickets for flights departing from different airports and, significantly, that it related to how many tickets had been sold rather than the total number of tickets available to consumers at the advertised prices. We therefore considered that we had not seen evidence that demonstrated sufficient overall availability of reservable tickets at the advertised prices from any of the departure airports, nor had we seen evidence that those fares were reasonably spread across all outbound and inbound flights reservable at the time the complainant saw the offer. Because we had not seen evidence that showed that consumers had a reasonable prospect of obtaining tickets at the advertised prices, we concluded that the offer was misleading.
The website breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 3.1 Marketing communications must not materially mislead or be likely to do so. (Misleading advertising), 3.7 3.7 Before distributing or submitting a marketing communication for publication, marketers must hold documentary evidence to prove claims that consumers are likely to regard as objective and that are capable of objective substantiation. The ASA may regard claims as misleading in the absence of adequate substantiation. (Substantiation) and 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. and 3.22 3.22 Price claims such as "up to" and "from" must not exaggerate the availability or amount of benefits likely to be obtained by the consumer. (Prices).
Action
The offer must not appear again in its current form. We told Lufthansa to include more information regarding advertised fares in the conditions of the offer in future and to retain evidence that demonstrated tickets were available in sufficient quantities at the advertised prices.
