Two separate complaints, both relating to ads seen in March, were upheld – one, a listing for a hotel and return flights to New York, featured text stating a £1,090pp rate crossed out in favour of £749pp.
The other was a similar listing for a Tenerife package which had the £1,119pp price crossed out and £699pp flagged instead. Both complainants tried to book packages and found prices had increased.
Loveholidays said third-party suppliers priced dynamically. The ASA said: “They believed a delay in their system in updating accommodation information may have caused the holiday to have been advertised at the incorrect price.”
The OTA stated it was taking steps to prevent similar issues in future, including improving the speed and accuracy of price updates on its website, working with third-party suppliers to reduce time it took to be notified of price changes and reviewing practices to ensure pricing was presented clearly and accurately.
The ASA said: “Because accommodation price data was not updated on the Loveholidays website in real time, we expected their marketing communications to make clear when the last price update was, and that the price featured was liable to change. However, that information was not included in the ads.
“It was also unclear how the reference price and associated savings claims featured in both ads had been calculated, given that the prices on Loveholidays’ website were frequently subject to change.
“We told Loveholidays to ensure that advertised prices were based on genuine prices available to consumers. We also told them to take steps to reduce the likelihood of consumers being misled, for example, by describing prices that were subject to change as ‘from’ prices and stating when those prices were last updated.”
