Eurostar ad banned over misleading deals claims
A Eurostar ad has been banned for showing misleading fare deals after a watchdog found that consumers would have to book up to 18 weeks in advance to secure the cheapest prices on their preferred dates.
A web page on eurostar.com on January 24 headed “Trains to France” stated: “With Eurostar tickets from as little as £29 o/w* (one way) and trains leaving for Paris up to 18 times a day, start your escape in London or Kent and arrive rested and raring to go, right in the heart of the action.”
Further text stated: “Train to Lille from £29* one way.”
A consumer, who said they were unable to find tickets from London to Paris at the price advertised, complained that the ad was misleading.
Eurostar International said customers would not expect to find the lead-in £29 fare available for departures within the immediate six weeks, and would instead expect this fare to be available for bookings made further in advance.
On January 24, the date the ad was seen, 5,070 fares from London to Paris priced at £29 were available for travel dates between March 6 and June 8 2018.
Eurostar said it accepted that the availability period for £29 tickets – six to 18 weeks in advance – could have been more clearly communicated to customers and it had updated the web page accordingly.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said consumers would understand the ad to mean that a significant proportion of one-way tickets from London to Paris, Paris to London, London to Lille and Lille to London would be available to buy for £29 and across a range of dates and times within the period.
It found that tickets at the £29 price were only available for dates at least six weeks in advance, and that cheapest fares made up a “very small percentage of one-way tickets from London to Paris in both directions within the relevant booking horizon”, or six to 18 weeks in advance.
It said: “We therefore did not consider that a significant proportion of tickets was available at the ‘from’ price and, because of that, the claim was likely to mislead.”
It ruled that the ad must not appear again, adding: “We told Eurostar International to ensure in future that when using ‘from’ price claims that a significant proportion of the advertised fares were available at the lead-in price, unless the specified quantity of tickets was stated.”
Eurostar said: “We take great care in adhering to the ASA rules and code, and in 2017 more than 725,000 Eurostar seats were sold at £29.
“As soon as we became aware of the complaint, we immediately updated the language on our website.
“We continue to keep the language under review and up to date, to make sure we meet our regulatory requirements.
“We also intend to introduce a tool on our website which will indicate to customers the lowest fares available on each day.”