27 January 2005: ACCC accepted court enforceable undertakings that include extensive corrective advertising from Flight Centre, one of Australia’s largest travel agencies.
Flight Centre provided the undertaking without admissions after the ACCC investigated their ‘lowest airfares guaranteed’ slogan claims.
The ACCC was also concerned that Flight Centre claimed its ‘Global Buying Power’ could get better deals on airfares than other travel agents, when in fact Flight Centre does not have such power because it generally does not buy airfares in bulk.
Flight Centre agreed not to use the ‘Global Buying Power’ representation in the future without giving prior notice to the ACCC to ensure that the claim is in fact accurate.
Flight Centre agreed to a number of corrective steps for both the slogans. It will:
publish a total of 44 corrective notices in 11 major newspapers, including The Daily Telegraph, Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian, to be run over four weeks
display A3-sized corrective notices in the front window of each of its 500 plus retail outlets continuously for four weeks.
