Eurostar has been censured by the advertising watchdog after misleading potential customers over the cost of seats during its sale last summer.
The Advertising Standards Authority found the train operator had breached rules around misleading advertising and prices after its adverts claimed that customers could secure trips to Paris, Brussels and Lille “from just £39 each way”.
It concluded that only a “very small percentage” of tickets were available at that price and has warned Eurostar not to make such price claims in the future.
The judgment comes after a torrid festive period for the operator, when services were hit by mass cancellations caused by staff strikes and bad weather led to flooding of a tunnel under the Thames.
The complaint to the ASA was raised by a customer after they were only able to find one ticket from London to Paris at the advertised price.
The body of the promotional email, which was sent last July, called on travellers to “soak up every second of summer”, while large text in the body of the email said: “TREAT YOURSELF TO A EUROPEAN GETAWAY … FROM JUST £39 EACH WAY.”
When approached by the ASA, Eurostar said 39,000 seats had been available at the advertised price at the time the email was sent and this was clearly stated in the terms and conditions at the bottom of the text.
It said that while it did not know when the complainant had searched for a ticket, the number of tickets available at the price would have decreased as more were sold. Eurostar added that the email clearly stated that tickets were subject to availability and it had received no direct complaints from customers about the promotion.
After analysing data sent from Eurostar, the ASA judged that the rail operator had been unable to demonstrate that a “significant proportion” of tickets between London to Paris had been available “from” £39 during the promotional period.
When the promotion was launched only 9,500 standard class seats had been available at that price. Similarly low percentages of tickets between London and Brussels and Lille had been available at that price.
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The ASA concluded: “Because we considered that a significant proportion of tickets had not been available at the “from” price, we concluded that the claim ‘treat yourself to a European getaway from just £39 each way […] with a summer getaway in August or September’ was therefore misleading.”
On Saturday, thousands of travellers were left stranded when more than 40 Eurostar services in and out of London were cancelled after flooding in a tunnel on the line caused chaos.
Pre-Christmas travel to and from the continent was also severely affected after an unexpected strike by Eurotunnel workers forced Eurostar to cancel most of its trains on 21 December.
Commenting on the ASA ruling, a Eurostar spokesperson said: “We value customer feedback, including complaints and take great care in the way that we word our advertising and the number of tickets that we offer at the promotional price during particular time periods.
“We understand and take onboard the ASA’s ruling which is related to seat availability in part of the promotional period, and we are committed to ensuring that this scenario does not occur again.”
