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The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) has banned an advert from hotel giant Premier Inn in which it advertised rooms available from £35 per night.
The advertising watchdog said a paid-for search ad for Premier Inn, seen on 4 November 2023, stated, “Premier Inn Edinburgh – Rooms From Only £35 Per Night” was in fact “misleading” as only a small percentage of rooms were available at that price.
Premier Inn owner Whitbread provided data that showed that for 365 days, from 8 am on 4 November 2023, there were 112 live opportunities – “site nights” – to book a hotel room in Edinburgh for £35 within its booking window.
It also provided a table that outlined the spread of availability of hotel rooms in Edinburgh at £35 within that window. The table demonstrated there had been 377 site nights available, which they considered a “significant spread”.
However, The ASA considered that consumers would understand the claim ‘Premier Inn Edinburgh – Rooms From Only £35 Per Night’ as meaning that a “significant proportion” of rooms available across the proceeding 365 days would be available at that price and the number provided by Premier Inn did not meet that expectation. As such it said the claim had not been substantiated and was likely to “mislead”.
The ASA said the ad must not appear in its current form again and that Whitbread must ensure that when using “from” price claims in the future, a significant proportion of the advertised rooms were available at the advertised price.
Responding to the decision, A Premier Inn spokesperson told Sky News: “As the UK’s best-loved budget hotel brand we always have hundreds of thousands of great value rooms available but we accept that this specific digital campaign wasn’t up to our usual high standard and it was never our intention to be misleading.
“Unfortunately, the issue arose as a result of a £35 offer which proved slightly more popular than initially expected – the rooms sold quickly and we didn’t react fast enough to update the lead pricing in our paid-for ads against the available inventory. Enhanced processes are already in place to ensure future compliance and clear verification of any claims and we’re confident this issue won’t arise again.”
