Ad description
A website for Wowcher, www.wowcher.co.uk, seen in March 2025, featured a mystery holiday offer. A banner at the top of the webpage included the claim “FROM £99pp + Est £3.99 admin fee*”. Text stated, “Mystery Holiday™: Maldives, New York, Mexico, Dubai, Bali, Disneyland Paris & More!”.
Further text under the heading “How Does Mystery Holidays™ Work?” stated, “Purchase your Mystery Holiday for you and your travel companion. You will then receive your voucher codes and a link for redemption. Next, select preferred travel dates. Customers must redeem their vouchers as soon as possible using the link provided. You will then be asked to complete information relevant to your holiday booking. Your holiday destination will then be revealed! The merchant will then contact you via text message, telephone or email to arrange your flights from your desired airport region and inform you of where you’ll be staying. Then? Your holiday is booked and ready for you!”.
Issue
The complainant, who purchased a £99 mystery holiday, but was unable to book the holiday to the destination they were offered, challenged whether the promotion had been administered fairly.
Response
Wowcher Ltd stated that they were a third-party marketplace and were not involved with the consumer journey after a purchase had been made. Before allowing a merchant to publish their offer on the Wowcher website, they required that the merchant gave assurances about the price and availability of the offer. Although the Mystery Holiday deal was promoted on the Wowcher website, it was fulfilled through third-party travel providers.
Wowcher acknowledged that the complainant should have been able to book the holiday that they had been offered, since the third-party travel provider had uploaded an availability file with that date and destination. However, due to the dynamic nature of holiday prices and availability, at the point that the merchant contacted the complainant, they could no longer provide the holiday destination offered for that price. They understood from the third-party travel provider that the complainant had been offered alternative destinations and dates at the advertised price. Nevertheless, they had taken the decision to remove the travel provider from their Mystery Holiday merchant list.
Assessment
Upheld
The CAP Code stated that promoters were responsible for all aspects and stages of their promotions, which must be administered fairly and avoid causing unnecessary disappointment. It also stated that promoters, agencies, and intermediaries should not give consumers justifiable grounds for complaint.
The ASA understood that Wowcher was an e-commerce website through which consumers could purchase vouchers that afforded them a discount on a product or service, and that they did not sell their own products. For Wowcher’s Mystery Holidays, Wowcher acted as the promoter for the offer. Once consumers purchased a voucher, they were required to select their preferred travel dates, airport region, and had to supply passenger information. The location of their holiday was then revealed based on availability provided by the third-party travel provider, who contacted the consumer to confirm the details of their holiday.
We considered that consumers would understand from the ad that once their holiday destination had been revealed, they would be able to book a holiday to that destination without making any additional payments, unless a regional airport fee applied. As the consumer had already made the payment and provided their preferred travel dates before their holiday destination was revealed, we considered it was reasonable to expect that a holiday to that destination was available for that price. However, we understood that the complainant, who was told their holiday destination would be Rome, was unable to book a holiday to that destination because it was no longer available. Instead, we understood they were offered alternative destinations, which required an additional payment.
We acknowledged that Wowcher did not provide the holidays themselves and had no part in the consumer journey after a Mystery Holiday voucher had been redeemed. We also understood that travel was a fast-moving sector where pricing and availability could change frequently. However, we considered that as the promoter for the deal, Wowcher had a responsibility to ensure that it was administered fairly at all stages. We understood that the link through which consumers entered their travel dates to reveal their holiday destination was supplied by Wowcher. Consumers were likely to view the reveal of their holiday destination as exciting, and experience considerable disappointment if they were subsequently unable to travel to that destination. We therefore considered Wowcher should have taken reasonable steps to avoid disappointing participants, for example, by ensuring that the third-party travel providers’ holiday information was accurate. Because the complainant had not been able to book the Mystery Holiday they had been offered, we considered that the promotion had not been administered fairly and was likely to have caused participants unnecessary disappointment.
The promotion breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 8.1 and 8.2 (Promotional marketing) and 8.14 (Administration).
Action
We told Wowcher Ltd to ensure that their promotions were administered fairly and to ensure that their promotions did not cause unnecessary disappointment.
