Ad description
An email from Ambassador Cruises, received on 13 February 2025 featured the subject line “Set Sail & Save – 30% Off Your Second Guest”. Text in the body of the email stated, “Enjoy 30% off your second guest on selected 2025/26 & 2026/27 sailings. Whether you're dreaming of the Norwegian Fjords, the Mediterranean, or beyond, now is the perfect time to book your next adventure”.
Issue
The complainant, who believed the advertised discounts did not represent genuine savings, challenged whether the ad was misleading and could be substantiated.
Response
Ambassador Cruise Holidays Ltd t/a Ambassador Cruises confirmed that an administrative error was made and that the Norwegian Fjords cruise featured in the ad should not have been included in the promotional offer on 13 February 2025. The “30% Off” campaign was reviewed and approved internally in December 2024, and the Norewegian Fjord cruise was originally scheduled to be included in the promotion. However, following an internal review, the fares for that particular cruise were reduced. As a result, the cruise should have been removed from the campaign prior to its launch as the price had already been reduced before publication of the promotion.
Owing to an error, the promotion of 13 February 2025 continued with the inclusion of the cruise. The subsequent pricing under the campaign led to the pricing error featured in the ad. As soon as the error was identified and reviewed internally, the cruise was removed from the promotion on 3 March 2025. As a result of this complaint, they had reviewed their internal process and enhanced their internal pricing review policy, to mitigate opportunities for errors in future.
Assessment
Upheld
The CAP Code stated that price statements should not mislead by omission, undue emphasis or distortion.
The ad stated, “Set Sail & Save – 30% Off Your Second Guest” and “Enjoy 30% off your second guest on selected 2025/26 & 2026/27 sailings”. We considered that consumers would understand those claims to mean that they would be making a genuine saving of 30% on the second ticket they purchased, against the usual selling price of the featured cruises.
The complainant provided us with two images of the Norwegian Fjord cruise listing on the website, which showed the price before and after the complainant received the promotional email. Before the promotion, the individual price per person was stated as “From £879 per person”. After the promotion had begun, the cruise price appeared as “From £1,009 first person £709 second person”.
We acknowledged Ambassador Cruises’ response that the cruise had been erroneously included in the promotion and welcomed their action to correct the error. However, because Ambassador Cruises were unable to supply evidence that showed that £1,009 was the established usual selling price of an individual ticket for the cruise, and that the price reduction represented a genuine saving for consumers, we concluded that the ad was likely to mislead.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading Advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation) and 3.17 (Prices).
Action
The ad must not appear again in the form complained of. We told Ambassador Cruise Holidays Ltd t/a Ambassador Cruises to ensure that their future savings claims did not mislead by including prices that were not the usual selling price of their cruises.
