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Mercury Holidays in trouble for ‘misleading’ adverts
Mercury Holidays has come under the scrutiny of advertising watchdogs after complaints about two of its adverts in the national press.
Two consumers said there were unable to find holidays at the prices advertised, leading to an investigation by the Advertising Standards Authority.
The ASA upheld the complaints and ordered the company’s partent, Sunspot Tours, not to run the misleading adverts again.
The adverts promoted deals offering a week’s four-star half board holiday with a second week free from £359, with a table showing the ‘from’ prices of different durations between September to May.
A second advert offered two weeks half board with a third week free from £329.
Mercury Holidays provided various evidence in a bid to back up its claims, arguing that prices were based on the cost and availability of low-cost flights which changed daily.
It also argued that a disclaimer at the end of the adverts made it clear the ‘from’ price was subject to availability and could change, but claimed it was accurate at the time of printing.
But the ASA ruled it had not seen evidence to demonstrate that a reasonable quantity of holidays were available at the advertised ‘from’ price at the time the ad appeared.
It said the ad did not make sufficiently clear that the ‘from’ price was subject to change and had limited availability.
"We told Sunspot Tours not to use ‘from’ prices if they were unable to demonstrate that the price in question was available to consumers at the time the ad appeared, in reasonable quantities and spread evenly across the advertised travel period," said the ASA report.
"We also told them to ensure that, where holiday prices were subject to change and had limited availability that was made clear in a prominent statement."
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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