ASA ruling against train operating company

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld that a website for ScotRail Trains Ltd featured a number of claims that the website offered the “lowest” or “cheapest” ticket prices was misleading.

The website featured a page with a journey planner tool that stated, “Get cheapest tickets”, and the page’s main image featured the text, “Book direct for our best price”.‎‎ There was a subsequent page titled “Find the right ticket” and this featured a tab labelled “Buy Tickets”. That tab could be clicked on to reveal a drop-down box with a journey planner stating, “Unbeatable on price”.

ScotRail stated that the ‘Get cheapest tickets’ wording was a call-to-action button that when clicked on highlighted the cheapest fare for the journey. As ScotRail believed that the journey planner made clear which fares were the cheapest, ScotRail did not believe that this claim was misleading. Further, they stated that “Book direct for our best price” referred to consumers who booked directly with ScotRail always paying the lowest price they offered as they offered regulated fares with a centrally controlled fares database. Finally, in reference to the claim “Unbeatable on price”, as no booking fees were charged on the ScotRail website they believed that their prices could not be beaten. The also offered a price promise, offering to reimburse consumers that were able to find cheaper like-for-like tickets elsewhere.

ASA upheld the complaint, as it was concluded that most consumers would understand the claims to mean that, by using ScotRail, they were purchasing the lowest priced tickets available for that journey. Although ScotRail did not charge a booking fee, many competitors also did not charge a booking fee, meaning that their prices could not have been beaten. Further, ScotRail did not hold evidence to substantiate the claims “get cheapest tickets”, “Book direct for our best price”, and “unbeatable on price”, therefore leading ASA to rule the advertisement as misleading.