Travel Up rapped by ASA

A travel agency has been banned from advertising flights online at rates that were not available.

A travel agency has been banned from advertising flights online at rates that were not available.

The advertising watchdog made the ruling against Travel Up after a complaint over return flights from London to Dhaka this winter which were advertised at £306 return but could not be obtained at that price.

The rates were promoted on the websites dearflight and robinflight but the Advertising Standards Authority today said the advert should not appear again in its current form.

“We told Travel Up to ensure that they held evidence to demonstrate that price claims were genuine,” the ASA said.

Reading-based Travel Up had argued that the prices listed on the two websites were “genuinely available” from listed airlines but the availability of flights at all prices was not fixed and fluctuated from hour to hour.

The ASA ruled that “because Travel Up had been unable to provide evidence that the airline supplying the data had sold flights at that price, we concluded that the claim was misleading”.