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It's been a busy few days for consumer and adlaw developments. Last week, the CMA started investigations into eight businesses about their pricing practices as well as finalising its price transparency guidance and the European Commission published its 2030 Consumer Agenda.
The ASA was busy too. It published a series of rulings about hotel room pricing. Significantly, the rulings didn't come about as a response to consumer complaints. The various ads were identified for investigation following intelligence gathered by the ASA's Active Ad Monitoring system, which uses AI to proactively search for online ads that might break the rules in the CAP Code.
The ASA challenged whether price claims in the ads concerned were misleading and could be substantiated. The challenges were upheld. The key message was that when using "from" price claims, advertisers need to make sure that a significant proportion of rooms are available at the advertised price, and across a range of dates if the ad is not for a specific date.
A couple of the advertisers concerned said that they provide accurate prices to online search providers, but the ASA made clear that this does not mean that the advertisers don't need to worry about complying with the CAP Code.
As well as the pricing issues, the ASA also investigated a claim in a fifth ad that a sale was ending in four days. The closing date for the offer was extended by two weeks, so the ASA challenged whether the promotion breached the CAP Code. Closing dates for promotions must not be changed unless unavoidable circumstances outside the promoter's control make it necessary, and not to change the date would be unfair to those who sought to participate within the original terms, or those who sought to participate within the original terms would not be disadvantaged by the change. Three of the CMA's eight investigations relate to whether time-limited sales ended when they said they would, so this ruling is also very relevant to the CMA's recent work.
The rulings show how important it is to get consumer price claims right. The CMA will look at ASA rulings when considering its work, and it has already indicated that it is interested in consumer law practices in the travel sector, among others. It is crucial that advertisers in the sector take on board the ASA's guidance in these rulings as well as the CMA's guidance. The advertisers have received a rap on the knuckles from the ASA, but traders in similar cases could face fines from the CMA.
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