The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has told On the Beach it should have been clearer in adverts for its free airport lounge offer.
The ASA said a TV ad and two On the Beach website pages ‘misleadingly implied that all consumers with eligible bookings would receive free airport lounge access’, when in fact there was a cap on the number of passes available.
A member of the public complained that the ads didn’t give enough information about the fact there was a cap.
The TV ad said: “Be a booking hero and get free airport lounge access with On the Beach. Celebrate your smarts, bury yourself in the buffet, and get ready for some holiday luxury with your five-star hol.”
Text on the screen read “Min 7-night package holidays. Selected airports. Max 6 people. For departures at least 45 days after booking. Excludes Citybreaks.”
On the Beach’s homepage featured a clickable tile with text that read: “Free lounge access *Terms apply”. Text underneath stated: “FREE Airport Lounge Access Holiday like a VIP with FREE Airport Lounge access on 5* jollies.”
Users who clicked on the tile went through to a new page that gave similar information, then said: For full T&Cs, keep scrolling!”.
On the Beach said it made it clear to customers that terms and conditions applied when promoting its free lounge offer and that the terms made clear lounge passes were subject to capacity limitations.
The terms also said that any eligible customers who could not receive free lounge access would be provided with a cash alternative. The company provided data that showed 93% of bookings between February and August received free airport lounge access and the rest got a cash alternative.
The ASA said consumers would understand from the ads that, if they made an eligible booking for a five-star holiday, they would receive free airport lounge access. It said it did understand that there was a total number of passes that could be offered at certain airports at certain times, but the terms and conditions were not prominently displayed.
The ASA said: “Because the overall impression of the ads was that as long as consumers complied with the conditions of the offer, they would receive free airport lounge passes, whereas that was not the case, and because the ads did not make clear that the cap meant passes were limited, and therefore consumers might not receive them, we concluded that the ads were misleading.”
The ASA said the ads must not appear again in their current form.
