Hotel Pricing and Booking Transparency Under Scrutiny: ASA Rulings and CMA Enforcement Raise the Stakes for Hotel and Travel Businesses

Price transparency in the hotel and online travel sector is facing heightened regulatory scrutiny, with the Advertising Standards Authority (“ASA”) and the Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”) both recently taking action against misleading pricing practices. These interventions form part of a wider focus on online choice architecture and the clarity of information presented to consumers.

The ASA has recently upheld complaints against four major hotel and travel brands for misleading “from” price advertising, while the CMA has targeted travel and hotel businesses in its first enforcement cases under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (“DMCCA”). This enforcement action was accompanied by the publication of new guidance to help businesses comply with the law on price transparency and optional charges.

Collectively, these developments make clear that headline room rates must reflect genuine availability, optional extras cannot be added without a customer’s active agreement, and pricing information must be clear and transparent from the outset.

1. ASA bans “from” price ads from four major hotel and travel brands

On 19 November 2025, the ASA published rulings against four hotel room providers. Each involved paid-for search or web ads promoting low room rates using unqualified “from £X” claims - for example, “rooms from £49” without any further context. 

The ASA found that the advertisers’ practices fell short because:

• Consumers would reasonably expect a “from £X” price to be available for a significant proportion of rooms, spread evenly across the advertised period and not just on isolated days or off-peak periods.
• In some cases, the advertised “from” prices were available only in limited circumstances - for example, for a small number of rooms or on a handful of low-demand dates - meaning consumers had little realistic chance of securing the stated rate.  The ads failed to explain these limitations, as they did not include any qualifications about date restrictions or limited room availability. Without this context, consumers were likely to assume that the headline price applied more broadly than it actually did.
• In other cases, the advertised pricing came from dynamic feeds (e.g. Google Travel Feeds in Search Ads), and the advertisers could not provide specific data to demonstrate how many rooms were available at the advertised price. The ASA stressed that partnering with third parties in this way does not reduce an advertiser’s responsibility to ensure that pricing information is accurate and can be substantiated. 

However, it is worth noting that in one case, the ASA did accept that the hotel chain had satisfied the ‘significant proportion’ threshold referenced above by making 23% of the hotel’s inventory available at the advertised price across the advertised period.

These rulings are an example of the ASA using its Active Ad Monitoring system, to proactively identify potentially misleading digital price claims and take follow-up action. The regulator’s message is clear: minimum price claims must reflect genuine availability rather than outlier rates, and advertisers must take active steps to ensure compliance across all channels, including working proactively with ad providers to prevent misleading pricing from appearing in paid search formats.

2. CMA opens first DMCCA enforcement cases - with implications for travel and online booking

On 18 November 2025, the CMA launched its first formal enforcement actions under the DMCCA, targeting eight businesses - including a number of well-known names - as part of a wider crackdown on misleading online pricing practices. The CMA is in particular investigating the following practices:

• hidden or late-stage mandatory fees;
• pre-selected or automatically bundled optional services; and
• misleading countdown clocks and other urgency messaging.

In addition to launching these eight investigations, the CMA wrote to a further 100 businesses to outline concerns about their use of additional fees and certain online sales tactics. 25% of these letters were sent to travel and hotel businesses (and several other businesses linked to the hotel and travel sector were targeted). It is therefore clear the sector remains under active scrutiny.  See our article on these actions here.

CMA’s final price transparency guidance

Alongside its investigatory actions, the CMA published its final ‘price transparency’ guidance, reminding traders of their obligations under the DMCCA to ensure that prices are not misleading and include all mandatory charges at the outset, such as administration and booking fees, tourist taxes, resort fees and mandatory cleaning fees. The practice of showing consumers an initial headline price for a product and subsequently introducing additional mandatory charges as consumers proceed with a purchase or transaction – sometimes called ‘drip pricing’ – is expressly prohibited under the DMCCA. Hotel providers advertising a room at a price of £250 per room, per night, must therefore ensure that the advertised price includes all mandatory charges. 

CMA’s guidance on consent for additional charges

The CMA’s guidance on ‘Getting Consent for Additional Charges When Selling Online’ provides further clarity on how to charge consumers for optional extras, such as travel insurance, seat selection, baggage, parking, breakfast, room upgrades and late checkout.

The CMA emphasises that:

• Consumers must actively choose any optional extra. Businesses must clearly explain the additional payment and obtain the customer’s express consent before any charge is applied.
• Default or automatic additions are not permitted. Express consent cannot be obtained through pre-ticked boxes, default selections or automatic basket additions.
• Opt-out mechanisms do not count as consent. Customers must not be required to untick a box or remove an item from their basket to avoid paying for something.
• Customers must be able to review and confirm all charges before payment. Businesses should provide a clear final summary showing what has been selected and the cost of each item.

If a consumer has not expressly agreed to an optional charge, they are not required to pay it and are entitled to a refund. Failure to obtain express consent can lead to penalties of up to 10% of turnover (or £300,000, whichever is higher) and orders to compensate affected customers.

For hotels, online travel agencies and airlines, this means carefully reviewing how add-ons are presented during the booking process. Optional extras must be transparent, clearly priced and selected only through genuine, affirmative choice. Non-compliance carries significant regulatory and reputational risks as scrutiny of the travel sector continues to increase.

3. What Businesses Should Do Now

These developments show a coordinated push by regulators for clearer, more transparent pricing in online journeys - especially in the travel and hotel sectors, where complex fees and digital advertising play a major role in attracting customers.

Travel and hotel businesses should prioritise auditing their advertising, booking flows and pricing architecture, focusing on:

• “From” price substantiation - Ensure headline rates are genuinely available for a significant proportion of rooms across a realistic date range and retain supporting data.
• Clear qualifications - Where prices apply only to limited dates or room types, make this clear and prominent.
• Inclusive headline prices – Ensuring that these include all mandatory charges.
• Transparent optional extras - Require active, affirmative selection of any optional paid add-ons.
• Avoiding ‘dark patterns’ - Remove harmful default opt-ins, drip pricing, hidden fees and urgency messaging that may mislead consumers.
• Internal controls - Training marketing, product and revenue teams on ASA/CMA expectations and ensure that legal teams have oversight of any pricing-led campaigns.

With enhanced scrutiny from both the ASA and CMA, businesses in the travel and hotel sectors face significant regulatory and reputational risk if their pricing practices fail to adhere to the legal and regulatory requirements.

Authors: Craig Giles, Shona O'Connell , Mohinder Nagra, Amy Cole