Hotel chain Premier Inn has been banned from advertising rooms “from just £35 a night” by the advertising regulator.
The Advertising Standards Authority discovered an online advertisement from November saying “Premier Inn Edinburgh – rooms from just £35 per night.” it was “likely to mislead” viewers.
Premier Inn owner Whitbread showed the watchdog that there were 377 rooms on offer in the Scottish city for £35 a night, a year after the advert ran.
But the ASA said customers would believe the announcement meant a significant number of rooms would be available at this price next year. In reality, only a small percentage were available for £35.
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A complaint was made to the ASA by a reader who said they could not find any rooms for £35.
The ad is not expected to appear again in its current form, the regulator said.
“We told Premier Inn to ensure that when using “from” pricing statements in future, a significant proportion of advertised rooms were available at the advertised price.”
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Responding to the decision, Premier Inn said: “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 particular digital campaign did not meet our usual high standard and will never It was our intention to be misleading.
“Unfortunately, the issue arose as a result of a £35 offer which proved slightly more popular than initially expected – rooms sold quickly and we did not react quickly enough to update the starting price in our paid listings against inventory available. ” said a spokesperson.
“Improved processes are already in place to ensure future compliance and clear verification of any complaints and we are confident this issue will not arise again.”
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