22 Nov 2024

How hotels reel you in with potentially misleading discount claims

Advertising too-good-to-be-true room rates is banned under consumer law

Hotel rooms from big-name brands are being advertised at an unrealistically low rate to lure customers in, Which? Travel has found.

We found Travelodge, Hilton and Accor advertising discounted rates that weren’t available in a reasonable quantity to satisfy demand. In some cases, they didn’t exist at all.

The practice, known as bait pricing, is banned under consumer law and could breach the advertising code.

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Earlier this month, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled against Eurostar after an ad promoting fares ‘from £39’’ was found to have lacked significant availability.

Premier Inn also got into hot water when it promised Edinburgh rooms ‘from only £35 per night’. The ASA ruled that the offer was ‘likely to mislead’ because of the small percentage of rooms available.

Our research found other big hotel chains exaggerating the volume of bargains up for grabs in their promotions. Not only does this cynical price practice frustrate and disappoint consumers, it can boost sales for retailers. It’s known as the ‘commitment and consistency’ principle: consumers are far more likely to buy - even at the higher price - if they’ve already invested time and effort in the purchase.

Can you really book a London Travelodge for £55?

Travelodge advertises cheap rooms on Google using language that creates a sense of panic and urgency in the buyer: ‘King Size Comfort from £55’, for example. ‘Book Your Room Now! Book Early So You Don’t Miss Out! Rooms from £55. Book Online Today. Book for Tonight.’

The ASA guidance says that a ‘significant proportion’ of the product must be available at the ‘from’ price to satisfy demand. Under the ASA guidance, the availability must also be ‘spread evenly across the advertised travel period’.

However, 15 of the 138 Travelodge hotels we checked had less than 10% of nights available at the advertised price. For example, stays in London’s King’s Cross were promoted ‘from £55’, but only three nights in six months were priced this low (or lower) at a property in central King’s Cross. That’s 1.7% availability. All three options were on a Sunday night in January – a time when hotels typically struggle to fill rooms.

Slightly more £55 nights were available at the Travelodge London Kings Cross Royal Scot just down the road, but still only 8%. Instead, the majority of nights (64%) cost upwards of £100 – soaring to as much as £220 – a shocking price hike if you clicked on the website expecting a bargain.

Travelodge told us that the travel period covered 11 months, with thousands of rooms available after January. It added: ‘While room availability at individual hotels is affected by customer booking patterns and local circumstances, our price messaging fully complies with ASA requirements. Our pricing and advertisements are regularly updated to ensure transparency and accuracy.’

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Accor advertising hotel rates that don’t exist

Accor advertised a French getaway 15% off member exclusive on Facebook this summer. It was still broadcasting rock-bottom prices on the final day of the sale - including a Mercure near the Eiffel Tower ‘from £129’ a night (valid on two-night stays). However, when we checked, we couldn’t find a single night available at this price over the whole 64-day travel period.

Instead, the majority of nights cost more than £180 and peaked at £252. In fact, when we checked, 15 of the 19 French hotels we looked at had no nights available at the promotional price.

Those cheap rooms may have already sold out, but that’s not a good-enough defence under the rules of the CAP Code (the rule book for non-broadcast advertising). Retailers must monitor stock and withdraw or amend advertising once a product sells out at that price.

Hilton sales prices ‘subject to availability’

We also checked 18 participating hotels for Hilton’s 20%-off sale. A huge 71% of nights were on sale at the promised rate for the DoubleTree in London Chelsea. However, we found no availability at the advertised price - ‘from £133’ - for the Grand Hotel des Sablettes Plage on the French Riviera. The cheapest room was a much pricier £180.

When we checked, the sale had been running for three months, with less than a month to go, so stock was likely to have dwindled. But we’re concerned that Hilton continued to run these ads even after its cheap rooms sold out.

Its T&Cs did at least state that the offer was ‘subject to availability’, going some way to manage consumers’ expectations. However, the CAP Code states that caveats such as these don’t let promoters off the hook - especially if they’re buried in the small print.

Which? has shared its findings with the ASA and is also calling for a review of Trading Standards to ensure adequate enforcement of consumer protection laws. By the time we went to press, neither Accor nor Hilton had responded to our request for comment.

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Flight promotions from easyJet, Ryanair and Jet2

We also found low-cost airlines using a similar tactic to sell seats (this does not breach any consumer laws). For easyJet’s sightseeing and sunseekers promotions, more than half of the routes we checked had less than 10% of flights available at the advertised price, while two routes (out of 87) had none at all.

For example, London Luton to Amsterdam was advertised from £17.99, but there was no availability for this price during the promotional month (October). Instead, one-way fares cost between £20.99 and £86.99.

Airlines measure the number of seats, not flights, to ensure that a significant proportion of fares are available at the sale price. EasyJet told us: ‘We always adhere to advertising regulations, and any suggestion to the contrary is false and misleading to customers.’

Options were also limited in Jet2’s ‘Winter 25/26 sale’: nine out of 37 routes we checked had less than 10% of flights available at the ‘from’ price. East Midlands to Lanzarote flights were being promoted ‘from £82’, but only one flight was available at this price over the 30-day travel period.

The majority of fares were above the £150 mark, peaking at £481. Jet2 told us: ‘We constantly review the prices on our live booking system and are investigating this enquiry in further detail.’

There was a better chance of bagging a bargain in Ryanair’s flash sale. Although a significant proportion of routes we checked (around half) had less than 10% of flights available at the advertised price, flyers who were willing to spend an extra £5 would have found themselves with more choices (compared with easyJet and Jet2).

Ryanair told us that its sale offered 826,000 seats ‘from €24.99’ – with 175,000 priced at €24.99 – which, it says, equates to more than 21% availability.

This article was first featured in the November issue of Which? Travel