The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned an advert from travel firm Secret Escapes for claiming consumers could get “up to -46% off today” on holidays to Bournemouth.
The ad was featured on Secret Escapes’ website and was seen in September 2024. A complainant challenged the ad as it believed the discount claim was misleading and unsubstantiated.
Further copy on the advert read: “Sublime seaside hotel in buzzy Bournemouth”, “Time-limited”, “up to -46% today”, and “From £135 [£233 crossed out] per room per night”.
The listing also included two symbols that when hovered over featured additional text. Part of the text read: “On selected offers. The discount percentage is the maximum discount value we’ve found across a significant proportion of our dates in comparison to the hotel’s standard rate or the [competitor] rate for this offer.”
The travel provider explained that its discount percentages were available across a large number of check-in dates. It also highlighted that the “dates with the cheapest “from” price would not necessarily also have the biggest percentage discount”.
However, the regulator stated that consumers would think that the discount claim of “up to-46%” meant that the holiday agency offered the hotel room for 46% less than it was listed on the hotel’s website.
The watchdog added: “We understood that the price of £135 represented a 42% discount from the room rate of £233 rather than 46%, and that there was no correlation between the “from” price and the “up to” percentage discount seen in the ad. We acknowledged that there were two explanatory icons next to the “up to” percentage discount and “from” price.”
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“However, we considered that the text itself did not make clear that the two figures did not relate to each other. The differences in the font and layout of the “up to” and “from” claims were not significant enough to dispel the assumption that they related to each other.”
The ASA ruled that the ad was misleading and broke CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), 3.22 (Prices) and 3.39 (Price comparisons).
Commenting on the ruling, Geraint Lloyd-Taylor, partner and co-head of advertising and marketing at law firm Lewis Silkin said: “Discount and pricing claims are high on the agenda of UK regulators. They are under scrutiny by the ASA, and from April will also be under renewed scrutiny by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). The CMA will have sweeping new powers, and will be able to initiate its own investigations, decide whether the rules have been broken and issue a huge fine – up to 10 percent of a company’s annual global turnover.
“So, any companies, including retailers, making discount claims should take stock of the claims they are making, because from April it won’t just be their reputation at stake, but also the bulk of their profits for any given year.”
Stock image above, not from Secret Escapes ad.
