Everyone’s a winner, baby. Part II

Here is a follow up on the blog where I thought I’d won a good prize.

After the last email quoted in that blog I was just the teensiest, tiniest bit annoyed. I felt that I was being fobbed off with meaningless excuses so I decided that I really needed some clarification about what I’d actually won, since I was told ‘The tickets you have won are worth 96 pound each’ and whether my prize would be different if I paid them the £240. Here is the rather simple request I sent…

I see from your site that the only tickets valued at £96 are Friday/Saturday day passes when sold individually, with ones for a group of 4 being £360.

Can you please clarify exactly what the tickets I have won entitle me to and whether staying on site entitles me to anything extra, as the prize value plus the £240 for accommodation brings the total value to £6 below that of a Gold Plus (2 bedroom) package for 4 people.

Seems quite a simple question to me, what do you think? I should be getting an email that explains everything perfectly. Here’s what I got…

The figure you are quoting carries an additional £6 per person booking fee, meaning a final price of 384.

Erm, what? That didn’t really answer anything. All that incredibly short email did was confirm what I’d already managed to figure out for myself. In fact, he should have known that the Gold Plus (2 bedroom) package I mentioned costs £630. Subtract £6 from that, since I said ‘the prize value plus the £240 for accommodation brings the total value to £6 below that of a Gold Plus (2 bedroom) package for 4 people’, then subtract the £240 they want for accommodation. What have you got? £384, that’s what. Looks like I didn’t need his maths lesson after all.

Here is how I replied to that email…

I understand that the tickets are the £90 (+ £6 booking fee) ones, that’s why I said “the only tickets valued at £96 are Friday/Saturday day passes when sold individually”.

Could you please answer my main question which was “Can you please clarify exactly what the tickets I have won entitle me to and whether staying on site entitles me to anything extra, as the prize value plus the £240 for accommodation brings the total value to £6 below that of a Gold Plus (2 bedroom) package for 4 people.

Slightly snippy, I know, but I was getting a bit annoyed by their replies that were seeming to avoid the questions I was asking. Anyway, it seemed to work. I finally got a reasonable reply…

There is no direct link between the value of the apartment+tickets options and that of the prize tickets you have won. The price you will have been quoted of £60 person is for a silver chalet for 4 people, and this price is derived from the cost price we pay for each apartment. I.e. we’re happy to offer it to competition winners at zero profit for us.

Having said that, I’m getting the feeling that you feel a little misled, so if you do decide to take accommodation at £240, then I will be happy to upgrade you to the 2 bedroom goldplus as you said

That will give you access to the Thursday night, and late checkout on the Sunday.

Hope that’s a happy conclusion for you.

Getting the feeling that I feel a bit misled? i wonder why that is, could it be because the competition was misleading from the start? Well, that’s covered in my next reply to them (many thanks to Judy Olsen for sharing her knowledge, and for taking the time out to give me a hand with this). It’s a long one, but it sets out all the main points for the folks at SFX…

Thanks for the clarification. Unfortunately the competition that I entered was for 4 free passes to SFX, and I think a reasonable person would infer that accommodation was included. I was also told on the phone that the dates were February 3rd to February 5th, so offering to give me access to the Thursday night as a gesture of goodwill is not offering anything that I hadn’t already been promised.

As I am sure you know, all the passes bookable on your site include accommodation, from Silver upwards. There are also third party sites such as www.seetickets.com that offer passes, again including accommodation. In fact I was unable to find anywhere that I could buy passes without accommodation. In other words, the prize of free passes includes accommodation by definition.

Secondly, the person who contacted me by phone said the prize was worth more than £400. £96×4 is not more than £400, but the £420 four person Silver package as offered by third parties obviously is. Again, any reasonable person would infer that accommodation was included in the prize.

Thirdly, the competition rules make it clear that travel is not included but make no mention at all of accommodation. Specifically ‘Prize is event passes only – winners must make their own travel arrangements’. Since all the advertised packages (Silver, Gold, VIP) on the tickets section of your website include accommodation, if this was not included it should have been made absolutely clear. This point is perhaps the most serious. Any advertisement or promotion needs to be truthful and honest, but in the case of the prize this could be said to be seriously misleading.

Fourthly, there are several points on which this promotion seems to fail to meet the CAP code on prize promotions, but I would like you to consider specifically section 8.21.1:

“Promoters must not falsely claim or imply that the consumer has already won, will win or will on doing a particular act win a prize (or other equivalent benefit) if the consumer must incur a cost to claim the prize (or other equivalent benefit) or if the prize (or other equivalent benefit) does not exist.”

Clearly, the Pontins offer at £60 involves a cost as I would not be able to take up the prize without accommodation.

Whilst I accept that there was no intention to mislead, it has to be remembered that there is a deal involved here. Running promotions provides you with a valuable database of potential ticket buyers. For my part I have to decide if the prize and my chances of winning it justify handing over my details. In this case, I would not have given my details if I had not believed, with good reason, that accommodation was part of the prize.

I am sure that you will want to put these points right for future promotions. In the meantime, I hope that you will agree to offer myself and my guests free basic accommodation as a gesture of goodwill and that you will also consider upgrading this to the Gold or Gold Plus package in recognition of the embarrassment I have suffered in having to tell friends that their free treat might not be so free after all.

Basically, I was saying “No, I’m not paying £240 for something which your competition portrayed as being free. p.s. I think you intentionally misled competition entrants”. I think that is a fair assessment of the whole situation. So, what did they think of that? Well…

I’m sorry you feel this way. I’m afraid I will not be able to meet your requests, and from my point of view I believe we have been honest.

That’s rather disappointing, isn’t it? But, this isn’t the end of the story. I’ll let you know if they ever respond to this…

Unfortunately, although you may feel you have been honest, my view is that the promotion was misleading. I think the best way to test this would be for me to make a complaint to the ASA.

And yes, I have made that complaint. I’ll probably get onto Trading Standards as well.

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