Eurostar censured by UK watchdog over cheap seats promotion

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Eurostar has been rebuked by the UK’s advertising watchdog for “misleading” customers over how many cheap seats were available during a sale.

The Advertising Standards Authority on Wednesday said a Eurostar promotional email promising £39 “bargain” seats last summer had breached the regulator’s code of conduct because only a “very small percentage” of seats were actually on sale for £39.

The watchdog has banned the advert from reappearing, and told Eurostar to ensure that “a significant proportion of advertised fares were available at the advertised price” when using similar pricing claims in the future.

The promotion was on journeys between London and Paris, Brussels or Lille booked in August and September. The regulator said consumers would have expected to find “a significant proportion of fares” at the promotional figure, and that “they would have a reasonable chance of obtaining a seat at the advertised price”.

“We therefore considered that Eurostar had also not demonstrated that a significant proportion of tickets for the . . . routes had been available ‘from’ £39 during the promotional period,” the ASA said.

The regulator’s ruling added that Eurostar said that 39,000 seats had been available at the advertised “from” price across the advertised routes — a detail included in the advert — and that the company “believed that was a significant number of seats and that consumers would therefore have had a reasonable chance of obtaining a seat at the advertised ‘from’ price.”

Eurostar said that the number of available seats at £39 decreased as the promotion went on and customers bought the discounted tickets.

Still, the ASA found that the promotion had breached its code on two counts, on misleading advertising and pricing, upholding a complaint from a customer.

The ASA regularly bans adverts that breach its rules, including promotions from airlines and oil companies over misleading green claims over the past year.

Eurostar said it “takes 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 on board 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.”

The ruling comes as Eurostar has suffered a difficult few weeks and was forced to suspend its services on two occasions in the run-up to Christmas and New Year’s Eve.

Both times were the result of problems with the tracks and tunnels on which the trains run, and which are not owned or operated by Eurostar. But the company was left dealing with thousands of stranded passengers at one of the busiest travel times of the year.