Background
Summary of Council decision:
Two issues were investigated, both of which were Upheld.
Ad description
A paid for Instagram post and a post on Eurostar’s Facebook page seen in June 2024:
a. The paid for Instagram post stated, “Book now – London > Amsterdam from £39 each way* […] *T&Cs apply.”
b. The post on the Eurostar Facebook page stated, “Book now – London > Brussels from £39 each way* […] *T&Cs apply.”
Issue
The complainant, who had only found limited tickets at the advertised price, challenged whether ads (a) and (b) were misleading because they:
1. exaggerated the availability of the advertised tickets; and
2. omitted a significant limitation.
Response
1. Eurostar International Ltd (Eurostar) stated that providing ticket availability, at an advertised price, as a percentage of total tickets, for tickets looking forward from a specific date did not give an accurate representation of availability. That was because a certain number of their tickets would be sold business to consumer and a certain proportion business to business and that was dynamic and demand driven. In addition, they regularly injected tickets when availability at a particular price could be low. On that basis, they believed a forward-looking calculation was not simple and could be misleading.
They stated that they could provide a calculation based on actual sales figures. They showed that as of 21 July 2024, 11.6% of tickets at £39 had been sold for travel on the two routes between the relevant travel dates, excluding blackout dates. They believed on that basis the “from” claim in the ads did not exaggerate the availability or amount of tickets available to consumers.
2. Eurostar said that the travel dates were clearly set out in their terms and conditions. They were presented on a page one click away from the ad. They believed that was a common way of displaying them and most consumers would expect the dates to be located there. They explained that there was only limited space in the ads to include all conditions.They said that when the ads were live, the travel periods for which the advertised price was available covered typical forward-looking periods and a significant majority of their customers usually purchased tickets in advance in line with the forward-looking travel dates. For that reason, forward-looking periods would not have been seen as a restriction for the majority of their customers and consumers would not have seen the offer as open ended.
Assessment
1. Upheld
The ASA considered that consumers would understand the claims “Book now – London > Brussels from £39 each way*” and “Book now – London > Amsterdam from £39 each way*” to mean that a significant proportion of fares to Brussels or Amsterdam would be available to purchase at £39 from June 2024, when the ads were seen, for the current bookable period. We also considered that consumers would expect to find the tickets available at the “from” price across a range of dates and times within that period, and that they would have a reasonable chance of obtaining a seat at the advertised price. We therefore expected to see evidence demonstrating that a significant proportion of the available tickets could be purchased at the “from” price of £39.
We understood that the dates the offer applied to when the ads were seen were 26 June 2024 to 30 October 2024 for London to Brussels and 15 May 2024 to 18 September 2024 for London to Amsterdam. However, that was not made clear in the ad. Notwithstanding that, Eurostar had not been able to provide us with evidence demonstrating the proportion of tickets available at the “from” price at the time the ad was seen, either for the bookable period at the time, or for the period during which the promotion ran.
The historical data provided by Eurostar only gave information about the number of tickets sold and did not provide figures on the availability of the £39 tickets or the number of full priced tickets. We did not consider that was sufficient evidence to demonstrate the availability of tickets at the promotional price at the time the ad was seen.
Concerning the future facing data, we noted Eurostar’s explanation that due to how they sold their tickets, such as private sales and the ad hoc injection of tickets, they were unable to provide forward looking data about availability that accurately represented their fares. Nevertheless, the responsibility was on Eurostar to demonstrate that the "from" price did not exaggerate the availability or number of benefits likely to be obtained by the consumer. The only data they had provided showed that 4.2% of the total number of tickets for London to Brussels and 1.6% of the total for London to Amsterdam were priced at £39.
Therefore, because Eurostar were not able to provide historic availability figures and future facing data did not show a significant proportion of fares to Brussels or Amsterdam would be available to purchase at £39, we concluded the ads exaggerated the availability or number of benefits likely to be obtained by the consumer. The ads therefore were misleading.On that point the ads breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising), and 3.17 and 3.22 (Prices).
2. Upheld
Ad (a) stated “Book now – London > Amsterdam from £39 each way* […] *T&Cs apply” and ad (b) stated Book now – London > Brussels from £39 each way* […] *T&Cs apply”. Neither ad qualified the claims, by stating that the offer applied to specific dates. We considered that the time period for which the offer applied, and any excluded dates, were likely to be material information to consumers.
The ads were seen in June 2024 and we understood that for ad (a), the London to Amsterdam route, the dates the tickets were available from were 15 May 2024 to 18 September 2024. For ad (b), the London to Brussels route, the dates the tickets were available from were 26 June 2024 to 30 October 2024. Eurostar told us that those dates were available for consumers to see on the landing page that the ad clicked through to. That information on the landing page was located near the bottom of the page. Consumers would have had to click on an arrow next to text that stated “*Terms and conditions” which would then have revealed the relevant dates.
We noted that qualifying tickets should have been immediately available for consumers who saw the ads in June, and these tickets would continue to be accessible until 18 September for London to Amsterdam and 30 October for London to Brussels. We considered however that some consumers would have wanted to book tickets outside of those dates, for instance in October for London to Amsterdam and November for London to Brussels. There was no information in the ads regarding dates that the tickets were available for. While information was on the landing page, it was close to the bottom and consumers would have to click further to reveal the dates. Therefore, it had not been immediately visible, and consumers would have had to scroll a long way to the bottom of the page to locate it.
Because the ads did not include any information about the offer dates, which was material information, and the landing page had not presented that information immediately to consumers, we concluded that the ads were misleading.
On that point the ads breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 and 3.3 (Misleading advertising) and 3.9 (Qualification).
Action
We told Eurostar International Ltd to ensure that when using “from” price claims in future, a significant proportion of the advertised fares were available at the advertised price. We also told them to ensure that future marketing made travel dates sufficiently clear for tickets with limited availability.
