Expedia S’pore Caught Promoting False Claims of ‘Daily Deals’; Got Warning from CCCS

The second after hearing that Singapore and Hong Kong are forming a travel bubble, you hurriedly pull out your computer and start scouring the net for cheap tickets.

You then see a deal for return tickets for $999, which will expire in 24 hours.

The price seems steep, but you’ve heard that prices have gone up since the announcement, and so you give in.

Plus, if you don’t snap up those tickets now, the deal will be gone forever!

Or will it?

We sometimes forget, dear reader, that not everyone tells the truth on the internet.

Expedia S’pore Caught Promoting False Claims of ‘Daily Deals’

In April 2019, the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCCS) launched an investigation into the “daily deals” promotions seen on Expedia’s site, including the emails sent out the customers.

According to CNA, the site advertised  “daily hotel deals” and “daily package deals”, which implied that the deals lasted a day.

Okay, this wasn’t just implied, the site literally represented the deals as “Hot deals for 24hrs only!”

They also said added that “These scorchin’ deals change daily at 12am (Singapore time)”

If this were the case, you’d expect the deals to expire after 24 hours.

But, of course, they didn’t.

Investigations by CCCS uncovered at least 55 such offers where the promotional prices remained unchanged the following day.

So, a more accurate description of the promotion would have been: “Hot deals for 24hrs only! (Don’t take the 24hrs too seriously though)”

And it wasn’t just that some of the deals went on for longer than advertised.

Investigations also revealed that some daily deals, like the “Hot deals for 24hrs only!” actually expired in less than 24 hours, meaning the promotion lasted for a shorter time period than advertised.

CCCS said these misleading promotions have been going on since 2016. 

BEX Travel Asia, the operator of Expedia Singapore, has since ceased these false claims.

Issued Warning to Operator

CCCS said it issued a warning to BEX for its breaches and has accepted BEX’s pledge to comply with the Consumer Protection (Fair Trading) Act.

Moreover, the operator has pledged to take swift action to cease any unfair practices in breach of the Act if they are detected on the site.

As part of this agreement, BEX has to ensure that promotions on Expedia Singapore are not:

• Advertised as being available for limited time period even though the promotion is
  expected to remain available after this time period
• Advertised as being valid for a certain time period even though the promotion may end before the specific time period expires

In other words, stop lying to customers and everything will be fine and dandy.

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