Ad description
The website for TUI, www.tui.co.uk seen on 2 July 2025, featured a holiday listing for the Caesars Palace Las Vegas hotel. The price appeared as “£1248.13pp” and “Total Price £2496.26”. Text below the price claim stated “Price may update at checkout based on availability. Local taxes may apply”. Further text stated in red print “Inc £187.74 Total Discount”.
Upon proceeding to the next stage of the checkout process, the price appeared as “£1608.44pp Total Price £3216.88”. Further text stated “THE COST OF YOUR HOLIDAY HAS INCREASED. We're sorry to say the price for your holiday has gone up by £722.62. It's because this trip uses flights from a third party [sic] airline. We receive the latest prices from the airline a few times each day but, the price might change when we come to request the actual seats. Your new total is shown in the holiday summary.”
Issue
The complainant, a journalist for a consumer-focused travel guide, who understood that the price had risen by over £700 during the checkout process, challenged whether the price claim “£1248.13pp” and the associated promotional savings claim were misleading.
Response
TUI UK Ltd t/a TUI said that they offered both static and dynamic prices for its holidays online. Where price changes occurred on TUI’s website, this would be because that holiday was priced dynamically. They explained that many TUI holidays combined flights and accommodation sourced via a variety of third-party operators. Those prices were controlled by suppliers and updated at different times of day. TUI stored those prices to return search results and refreshed prices for dynamic holidays at least four times a day, with some flight components updated hourly and some once a day. This allowed consumers visiting the TUI website to generate holiday price and availability search results in a timely manner. When customers moved through the booking journey the system checked the latest live prices, which meant the total could go down or up before booking.
In response to the specific ad in question, TUI said a notification would alert consumers that the price of a holiday had gone up or down since TUI last updated their system and it would appear before a customer completed their booking, which allowed consumers to decide whether or not to make a booking for that particular holiday.
TUI said they could not retain or retrieve specific pricing data for 2 July 2025 because of the volume of dynamic combinations and associated costs. However, when reviewing their data, they identified a fare filing issue with a particular airline concerning the booking in question, which they believed led to a discrepancy between the advertised price and the price shown at booking stage to the complainant. They removed that airline from sale as part of their holiday packages until the issue was fixed.
Regarding the advertised discount, they explained that the online “discount” reflected the difference between online and offline prices across all holidays on the TUI UK website. While they did not store data for 2 July 2025, they provided a screenshot that showed the same Las Vegas holiday on 20 October 2025 with a higher offline price and a lower online price, which they believed reflected the discount. They said that since 2023, TUI had included the wording “Price may update at checkout based on availability” to their Hotel Deals and Summary pages to make it clearer to customers that prices may be subject to change.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA considered that consumers would understand the claims “£1248.13pp” and “Total Price £2496.26” on 2 July 2025 to be the actual price payable for the Caesars Palace Las Vegas holiday and they were available at the time they saw the listing. We considered that this impression was reinforced by the discount claim “Inc £187.74 Total Discount”, which suggested that the advertised price was a static offer that represented a price saving compared to the normal cost of the holiday.
However, we understood when the complainant attempted to book the holiday online, the price of the holiday increased by over £700. On this booking page, they were informed the price increase was due to an increase in flight costs provided by a third party.
We acknowledged that travel marketers often dealt with third-party suppliers, and that prices in the travel sector were dynamic and could vary. However, CAP guidance on “Travel marketing: Working with third parties” stated that marketers should take reasonable steps to reduce the likelihood of consumers being misled. For example, marketers should ensure that prices that were subject to change were described as “from” prices and make clear in their advertising the date of the last price update. Because flight price data was not updated on the TUI website in real time, we expected their marketing communications to make clear when the last price update was, and that the price featured was liable to change. However, that information was not included in the ads. While we noted that the page included the qualification “Price may update at checkout based on availability” we considered that in the absence of a “from” price indication and the time of the last update, it was insufficient to counter the overall impression of the ad.
We understood that TUI believed an issue with a third-party flight provider caused the price increase between the price seen in the ad and the price on the booking page. Nevertheless, they were responsible for taking reasonable steps to ensure their stated prices were genuine and did not mislead.
We understood that the “Inc £187.74 Total Discount” claim reflected the difference between online and offline (in-store) pricing. We considered, however, that the basis of this comparison was not made clear in the ad and it was also unclear how the reference price and associated savings claims featured in both ads had been calculated, given that the prices on TUI’s website were frequently subject to change.
For the above reasons, we considered that the price claim and associated promotional savings claim were misleading.
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 TUI UK Ltd t/a TUI to ensure that advertised prices were based on genuine prices available to consumers. We also told them to take steps to reduce the likelihood of consumers being misled, for example, by describing prices that were subject to change as “from” prices and stating when those prices were last updated.
