Yahoo Finance Megabus £1 fare advert banned after it admitted only one seat was available
Adverts from coach firm Megabus promising seats from £1 have been banned – as only one was available on some journeys.
The Advertising Standards Authority intervened after Megabus admitted that when its website offered £1 fares from Aberystwyth to Birmingham, there was only one seat for that price to travel on 10 October.
A London to Bath route had five stops along the way and while three tickets were theoretically available for £1, only one covered the whole journey.
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“We therefore concluded that the ‘From £1’ claims relating to the Aberystwyth to Birmingham and London to Bath routes on the website and in the Facebook ad were misleading because the availability of £1 fares was not what consumers would have expected based on the claim in the ad,” ruled the watchdog.
The ASA also challenged another web ad that listed routes from Leeds to new Yorkshire destinations, claiming: “As always, our fares are from £1*.”
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And it questioned a Facebook post that promised “day trips from £1*” from London to Bath.
The ASA found that only 4% of fares for the Aberystwyth to Birmingham route were available at £1, and 3% for the London to Bath route.
The adverts must not appear again in that form.
“We told Megabus to ensure in future that when using ‘from £1’ price claims a significant proportion of the advertised fares were available at £1, so that consumers would have a reasonable chance of obtaining the products at the advertised ‘from’ price,” said the ASA.
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A spokeswoman for the company, which is operated by Stagecoach, said it “”always provided clear and transparent pricing for all of our customers”.
She added: “While we will continue to offer seats from £1, in line with recommendations from the ASA, we have decided to focus our marketing on the great value that all megabus.com fares offer, along with welcome extras such as on board wi-fi and charging points.”
Megabus also said £1 fares were generally available if the booking was made more than four weeks in advance, but this depended on the route, how many stops the journey involved and how many full and partial route tickets had been booked.
