Advertisment
The advertisement was a banner on Ryanair’s website that said: –
“Big Summer Sale
From €29.99
Book now Travel Apr-Oct. T&Cs apply.”
To the right of these details, it said in a red circle “Prices Will Rise”.
https://www.ryanair.com/ie/en/lp/legal/terms-and-conditions
Complaint
The complainant said that they considered the “definitive” statement that “Prices Will Rise” misleading. They claimed that some prices dropped after they had availed of the summer sale prices. They said that a flight they had purchased had a lower price the following month.
Response
The advertisers said that the promotion ran from 26th December 2024 to 31st January 2025 and offered flights from €29.99 for travel between April 2025 and October 2025. They said that the terms and conditions of the promotion stated that the offer was subject to availability and was applicable to bookings made on selected routes and dates. The terms also clarified that route and seat availability may be modified.
The advertisers said that their lowest fares were limited and sold out quickly. These fares, they claimed, required adjustment based on sales and customer demand due to dynamic pricing within the airline industry. Adjusting a fare did not guarantee identical routes, flights, or availability of low fare seats. Nor, they said, did it guarantee that current fares would be comparable to future fares. They said that adjusting fares due to demand actually increased the customers access to low fares as it meant that they could offer fares at competitive rates.
They believed that the complained about advertising was in fact accurate. They provided evidence that, at the time of their response, the flight purchased by the complainant was on sale for a higher price than that offered during the promotional period.
Conclusion
Upheld.
The Complaints Council considered the detail of the complaint and the advertisers’ response.
The Council noted that the advertising said “Prices Will Rise” but did not offer qualification as to when. The statement was not asterisked to direct to the terms and conditions and nowhere in the advertisement did it say that these price rises will occur generally after the sale while the individual prices may fluctuate during it. On the terms and conditions, the Council noted that they were not clear as to when a price rise would have occurred.
In the context of an advertising claim that “Prices Will Rise”, the Council considered it was reasonable for a consumer to presume that after the sale price promotion the price would increase rather than decrease. Further, they considered that consumers would have reasonably understood that prices would not fluctuate upwards during the promotional period unless they had additional clarifying information.
The Council also considered that the statement “Prices Will Rise” created a pressure to purchase and a customer would likely have purchased a flight as soon as possible based on this information.
The Council concluded that the advertising was therefore misleading and in breach of Code sections 4.1; 4.4; and 4.9.
Action Required:
The advertisement must not reappear in its current form.
