The Advertising Standards Authority has upheld a complaint over the use of a travel company’s own star ratings to describe the grade of accommodation.
The warning follows a complaint by a customer who booked a Spanish apartment with On The Beach after seeing it on the company’s website.
Next to a description of the Laguna Park 2 apartment were three gold stars. At the bottom of the page were the words ‘Official rating 2 star’.
The complainant challenged whether the three-star rating was misleading.
In response, On The Beach said that apartment complexes in Spain such as the Laguna Park 2 were often run as hotels as they provided similar services.
However, they were ranked in ‘keys’, not stars, with the highest rating being ‘3 key’.
On The Beach said that in order to provide a level playing field with hotels that used a star ratings system, it was common practice to allocate an equivalent rating for apartments.
The company stated that the key rankings were usually translated asone key being equivalent to two stars, two key equivalent to three stars and three key equivalent to four stars. It added that this was the case across many travel websites.
On The Beach said it was willing to amend the ad by adding the text ‘official rating 2 key which is equivalent to a 3 star’ and adding a label next to the three gold stars which stated ‘Our rating’.
The ASA accepted that it was common practice across the industry for travel agents to use their own rating system for accommodation and that consumers would understand this.
However, the text used by On The Beach was not of significant prominence and ‘contradicted, rather than clarified the more prominent three-star rating’.
On The Beach was told to ensure it was sufficiently clear in future ads when it was using their own rating system.
