Background
This ruling forms part of a wider piece of work on the availability of advertised hotel prices. The ads were identified for investigation following intelligence gathered by our Active Ad Monitoring system, which uses AI to proactively search for online ads that might break the rules. See also related rulings published on 19 November.
Ad description
Two paid-for search ads for Hilton Worldwide Ltd, seen on 11 April 2025:
a. The first ad stated, “Hampton by Hilton Hamilton Park From £68”.
b. The second ad stated, “Best Rates When Booked Direct […] Hampton by Hilton Newcastle From £59”.
Issue
The ASA challenged whether the price claims in ads (a) and (b) were misleading and could be substantiated.
Response
Hilton Worldwide Ltd provided information about their internal price monitoring processes. They stated that both ads were part of Google’s Travel Feed for Search Ads, a new ad product they were testing. They said they operated dynamic pricing, and that should a price change, this would be captured by one of the multiple updates that Google received throughout the day. This ensured accuracy and availability in their advertised prices. They believed that a technical error in both ads had prevented the relevant date from being displayed, which was instead replaced by another character. Regardless, they believed that they were able to substantiate the price claims made in both ads.
Hilton provided screenshots of historical data from their Google data feed. They stated these showed that the rates £68 and £59 were bookable at the respective hotel on the date the ads were seen by the ASA. For ad (a), rooms were available to book at the hotel for £68 or cheaper from 27 March until 14 April, when the rate changed to a different offer. For ad (b), rooms were available to book for £59 from 28 March until 11 April. Rooms were available to consumers throughout this time period and were not sold out. They stated that whilst they were unable to provide specific figures indicating the number of rooms available to book at the rates featured in the ads, they considered this was sufficient evidence of availability at the advertised prices.
Assessment
Upheld
The CAP Code stated that price claims such as “up to” and “from” must not mislead consumers by exaggerating the availability of the advertised product. CAP guidance also stated that the availability of a product at the “from” price should be spread evenly across the advertised travel period, and that marketers should make clear the specific period to which an offer related.
The ASA considered that consumers would understand the claims “Hampton by Hilton Hamilton Park From £68” and “Hampton by Hilton Newcastle From £59” to mean that a significant proportion of rooms at each hotel would be available at the advertised price. In the absence of any qualifications or date restrictions in the ad, we considered that consumers would expect to be able to find rooms at that price across a range of dates. We acknowledged that Hilton believed that there was an error in the ads, and that the date to which each price related should have been shown. However, we based our assessment on the ad as it would have been seen by consumers.
We understood the ad utilised Google’s Travel Feeds in Search Ads feature, which utilised pricing and availability data provided by the advertiser to display hotel prices with paid-for search ads. For such ads, the lowest available hotel rate was selected, and the advertiser could not choose the price shown or the format in which it was displayed. However, we also understood that Travel Feeds in Search Ads was an optional feature, and it therefore remained the responsibility of the advertiser to ensure their ads complied with the Code. Consequently, we expected to see evidence, in the form of relevant pricing and availability data across a range of dates, to substantiate the pricing claims made. Such data should include information about the number of rooms available at the advertised price, and the number available at other prices, to allow a comparison to be made.
Hilton provided screenshots of historical data from their Google data feed which they stated showed that, on the date the ads were seen, rooms at the advertised prices were available. However, they were not able to provide specific data to demonstrate how many rooms were available at the advertised prices. Consequently, we were unable to make an adequate assessment of the proportion of rooms available at each hotel at the advertised price. We therefore considered that the information provided was insufficient to substantiate the claims “From £68” and “From £59”.
Because we had not seen sufficient evidence to demonstrate that a significant proportion of hotel rooms were available at the advertised prices, we concluded the pricing claims in the ads were misleading and could not be substantiated.
The ads breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.7 (Substantiation) and 3.17 and 3.22 (Prices).
Action
The ad must not appear again in the form complained of. We told Hilton Worldwide Ltd to ensure, when using “from” price claims in the future, that a significant proportion of rooms were available at the advertised price and, if the claim does not relate to a specific date, across a range of dates.
