Air Asia Misleading Advertising - Watch out Qantas

[Sprucegoose]

Just tried to look up some of the still advertised specials to KL $119 and $149, Mel-Kul, as advertised on the website for one way travel between 22 June 10 to 30 June 10 for the booking period now to 30th Jan 10.

Nothing there Air Asia !!!!!

I find this misleading. ACCC will be notified.

Qantas you are now in bed with this lot and will be judged by with whom you sleep with!!!!

Spruce :evil::evil::evil:

 

[trippin_the_rift]

Nothing there Air Asia !!!!!

I find this misleading. ACCC will be notified.

Qantas you are now in bed with this lot and will be judged by with whom you sleep with!!!!

Spruce :evil::evil::evil:

I don't see how this is different to any other airline or website on the internet really. They advertise a price that is available, and those prices get snapped up quickly - that's fair and reasonable.

What's not reasonable is for you to expect Air Asia (or any other airline) to discountine advertising the special the very second their inventory at that price as sold out.

What about all the print advertising with these prices? Do you expect Air Asia, their creative and booking agencies to seek and destroy all copies of the promotion just because it was a huge success?

Get over it dude, honestly.

 

[Natt]

Look at it this way - at least their servers did not collapse



I won't mention names, but some other airlines have real problems when a big sale happens

 

[mannej]

Spruce, how is it misleading? The fine print clearly states that it is subject to availability. Seats are limited and may not be available on all flights, or peak periods or days.

ACCC will not even bother looking at your complaint seeing that it is stated that the specials are limited.

 

[UP4014]

I don't see how this is different to any other airline or website on the internet really. They advertise a price that is available, and those prices get snapped up quickly - that's fair and reasonable.

What's not reasonable is for you to expect Air Asia (or any other airline) to discountine advertising the special the very second their inventory at that price as sold out.

What about all the print advertising with these prices? Do you expect Air Asia, their creative and booking agencies to seek and destroy all copies of the promotion just because it was a huge success?

Get over it dude, honestly.

They should cease promoting on their web site. Otherwise they could have a promotion with very few seats available but run their advertising on and on which is misleading.

 

[albatross710]

What's not reasonable is for you to expect Air Asia (or any other airline) to discountine advertising the special the very second their inventory at that price as sold out.

I think it is reasonable that online advertising can be removed quickly/immediately. Online consumers expect to be far more dynamic.

I think we had a discussion elsewhere in the forum where airlines had ot have reasonable inventory available during the period of the sale.

 

[VirginiaF]

Not sure about what the laws are regarding "misleading" advertising, but how often do you see a shop with an "Up to x% off sale" and you intuitively know that there are probably only three items in the shop that are marked down, and they are hidden in a corner or the mark down on one item is from $10000 to $1000 that is actually only worth $800. Perhaps I am a little cynical? I guess it's a matter of caveat emptor, and forums (fori?) like this to keep tabs on such behaviour.

 

[moa999]

In bed with this lot
???????????

Hardy - they have signed a co-operation deal between Jetstar Asia and AirAsia.

More like holding hands at the Year 10 dance.

 

[albatross710]

Not sure about what the laws are regarding "misleading" advertising, but how often do you see a shop with an "Up to x% off sale" and you intuitively know that there are probably only three items

I think that is called "Invitation to treat". Wikipedia helps out with understanding that AirASia are not making a binding offer - just an invitation to take part in some commercial banter.

Contract lawyers distinguish this from a binding offer, which can be accepted to form a contract (subject to other conditions being met). The distinction between an offer and invitation to treat is best understood through the categories that the courts create. Invitations to treat include the display of goods; the advertisement of a price or an auction; and an invitation for tenders (or competitive bids). There may however be statutory or complementary obligations, so consumer protection laws prohibit misleading advertising and at auctions without reserve there is always a duty to sell to the highest bona fide bidder. But the general rule is that unlike an actual offer, an invitation to treat is not binding. The "inviter" can change his or her mind.

Invitation to treat - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[anat0l]

I wish I could say much the thing about NZ's $1.00 GAS fares. As soon as they "appear" I only see "Sold Out".

So where does one draw the line between a really, really hot deal (i.e. you missed out, poor you), and deliberate misleading advertising?

 

[11sjw]

.... and will be judged by with whom you sleep with!!!!

Is anyone else thinking "I hope this doesn't apply to my past" as well? :shock:

 

[harvyk]

To answer these questions (as someone who has read a fair few of the ACCC doco from their website)...

First of all, when advertising a sale, there must be sufficient numbers of the product in question, that a person has a reasonable chance of purchasing the product in question. For example a company can not say to everyone, "buy product X at 90% off normal price", and then delibrately understock the product compared to what the expected demand may be like, or artificially limit the numbers in some other way.

Second of all, when advertising a product as a special, it must be a real sale. They may not increase the price to bring it back down in price for the sale. If a product is only $50 in a 50% sale, then the product by law must have been $100 normally for quite some time, and at the end of the sale it must go back upto that price.

Now in regards to tickets, airlines release certain amounts of seats in specific classes, they will have a sale for a certain class of tickets (let say Q class), provided that they release a similar number of Q class tickets during the sale as they would normally release, and it is a real saving for Q class tickets, then they are in the clear.

As for the QF connection, it's probably the most tenious connection I have ever seen. QF, by nature of owning JQ, who has formed a loose agreement to make product purchasing decisions with AAX, but have also said they are competitors in all other aspects (so it's not an alliance) could not possibly be expected to have any say in AAX's marketing.

 

[anat0l]

Thanks for the info harvyk.

The $1.00 GAS fares on NZ are normally released with only 10 seats. I'm not sure whether this is 10 seats across one week, or basically seats are available across the entire week, but when 10 seats are sold the $1.00 fares stop.

You're looking at between 3,000 - 8,000 people tackling for 10 seats. Of course, this is NZ and the whole idea isn't promoted as a "sale" so the subtleties are there.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Spruce, how is it misleading? The fine print clearly states that it is subject to availability. Seats are limited and may not be available on all flights, or peak periods or days.

ACCC will not even bother looking at your complaint seeing that it is stated that the specials are limited.

I dunno about this!

Harvyk's summary is spot on in terms of availability and sufficient numbers etc.

Going just a bit further - Air Asia cannot advertise a fare as being available if there are indeed no seats - no matter what qualifications they put down!

In this case if the sale is a few days old and availability is limited to only one or two flights then I don;t think ACCC would be too fussed - that's what happens in sales like these - seats sell out.

However - you cannot advertise the fare if in fact there are no seat on any of the dates listed in the sale period. (Just the same as you couldn't list the sale fare as being applicable from 1 March to 1 November if in fact no sale seats were available, from the outset until 1 April etc)

If a fare is sold out then they need to withdraw the advertising. (And in this day and age that's not hard to do.)

Qantas is actually pretty good at doing this - I know at one time they were listing availability for specials over a certain period and as those seats were sold they updated that section of the website to reflect what was left.

 

[Sprucegoose]

I don't see how this is different to any other airline or website on the internet really. They advertise a price that is available, and those prices get snapped up quickly - that's fair and reasonable.

What's not reasonable is for you to expect Air Asia (or any other airline) to discountine advertising the special the very second their inventory at that price as sold out.

What about all the print advertising with these prices? Do you expect Air Asia, their creative and booking agencies to seek and destroy all copies of the promotion just because it was a huge success?

Get over it dude, honestly.

Tippin, I like alot of people associated with this website do work hard for their money. I dont appreciate the actions of AirAsia and no I wont 'get over it - dude honestly'

You will have noticed a retraction by AirAsia in the national press on these airfares over the weekend.

You must learn to be diligent in curbing those who mislead or defraud as it reflects on us all and we become an unattractive place for investors as well as becomming a more unjust place to live.


SPRUCE

 

[markis10]

What did the retraction say, I see no issue with the currently advertised $149 sale running for travel from June 22 with bookings to Jan 30, there is certainly availability of the fare between the dates advertised, for instance Mel-KL 25 July is $149?

 

[oz_mark]

The only notice I saw on the weekend was a correction notice in regard to some advertisements that had listed MEL-KUL as $119 rather than $149.

 

[harvyk]

Tippin, I like alot of people associated with this website do work hard for their money. I dont appreciate the actions of AirAsia and no I wont 'get over it - dude honestly'

Two thing, one nice use of font size, bolding, and underlining, really gets your message across...

Now that that is said. I also work hard for my money. I'm not about to happily throw away extra if I can avoid it, however in this case AAX have simply offered a service for a price. They have now finished offering the service for a price and have said the service now costs this. They have not forced you to purchase that service. They have not stung you on a later date and said "I know we offered you tickets for X, but really we want Y for us to honor those tickets" like some other airlines have recently done (cough AA).

So realistically AAX haven't done anything wrong here in this case, apart from failing to remove the ad as quicky as you'd have liked. (Also how do you know that when you started searching there weren't still fares available just on other days but they sold out during the time you where searching for them?)

 

[Sprucegoose]

The only notice I saw on the weekend was a correction notice in regard to some advertisements that had listed MEL-KUL as $119 rather than $149.

Correct. They listed at $119 and didnt offer, which was the basis of complaint.

They retracted after I would say some commentary from certain members of the public.

Regards

SPRUCE :mrgreen:

 

[Sprucegoose]

Two thing, one nice use of font size, bolding, and underlining, really gets your message across...

Now that that is said. I also work hard for my money. I'm not about to happily throw away extra if I can avoid it, however in this case AAX have simply offered a service for a price. They have now finished offering the service for a price and have said the service now costs this. They have not forced you to purchase that service. They have not stung you on a later date and said "I know we offered you tickets for X, but really we want Y for us to honor those tickets" like some other airlines have recently done (cough AA).

So realistically AAX haven't done anything wrong here in this case, apart from failing to remove the ad as quicky as you'd have liked. (Also how do you know that when you started searching there weren't still fares available just on other days but they sold out during the time you where searching for them?)

No they never offered the fares in the first place.