The encyclopedia · Advertising & PR · Marketing decision · 2025
On The Beach promised free airport lounge access on 5-star holidays — the passes ran out
TV ads promised free lounge access with On The Beach's 5-star holidays. The ASA banned them: passes were capped and one week 44% of bookings got nothing.
On The Beach · 2025-11
What happened
In August 2025 On The Beach ran a TV ad and two web pages pushing 'free airport lounge access' on its five-star package holidays. The TV voice-over told viewers to 'Be a booking hero and get free airport lounge access with On The Beach […] and get ready for some holiday luxury with your 5-star hol.' A homepage tile and a 'FREE Airport Lounge Access' page repeated the promise: 'Holiday like a VIP with FREE Airport Lounge access on 5* jollies.'
A complainant who understood there was a cap on the total number of lounge passes challenged the ads for omitting significant information. The ASA found the passes were indeed capped: while about 93% of eligible bookings overall received access, the share varied sharply in summer — in the first week of June 2025, 44% of bookings did not get a pass. The conditions of the offer were buried: the on-screen text flashed briefly and the website terms required scrolling and clicking an expandable heading.
On 5 November 2025 the ASA upheld the complaint. The TV ad breached BCAP Code rules 3.1 and 3.2 on misleading advertising, and the web ads breached CAP Code rules 3.1 and 3.3 plus 8.17 and 8.17.8, which require significant conditions of promotions to be made clear. All three ads must not appear again in their current form.
Why it happened
- The ads presented lounge access as a blanket perk of booking a 5-star holiday, when passes were capped and 44% of bookings in a peak June week received nothing.
- The significant conditions — the cap, the limited airports, the 45-day booking window — were never prominent: a flash of on-screen text and T&Cs hidden behind a scroll and an expandable heading.
- A promotion that cannot be honoured for a large share of takers needs its cap disclosed up front; the ASA's rule 8.17 exists precisely for offers like this one.
The lesson
An offer only some customers get must say so: On The Beach promised free lounge access on every 5-star booking while caps meant 44% of bookings in a peak week got nothing. The ASA banned the ads.
Aftermath
The ASA ruled the ads must not appear again in their current form, and told On The Beach to ensure future ads did not imply customers would receive free lounge passes as long as they complied with the offer's conditions when that was not the case. On The Beach had already been told the same thing in earlier rulings about its price-comparison emails, making it a repeat ASA offender in 2025.
Sources
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