Premier Inn admits to website anomaly which may be overcharging thousands since June 2009
Dear Andy
We know that Travelodge customers also use other hotel brands, so we were keen to let you know about some news which might affect you.
On Tuesday 24th November 09, following a complaint by Travelodge to the ASA, The Times reported that budget hotel operator Premier Inn has potentially been overcharging thousands of customers trying to book a Premier Offer £29 room since June 2009. Their television and newspaper advertising, featuring Lenny Henry, proudly claimed that the chain were offering 1,000,000 rooms for £29, but The Times reported that when customers arrived at the Premier Inn website those using the Quick Book on the homepage were not being offered £29 rooms when they were still available. Instead customers would only be able to find these advertised rooms by clicking on a different part of the website.
Independent price checking revealed that customers had a less then 1% chance of finding a £29 room if they used Quick Book compared with a 24% chance for those clicking on a Premier Offer banner.* This means thousands of customers may have been charged as much as double the price they should have paid. At no time did Premier Inn advise customers that lower prices were available in other parts of their website and encourage them to check for £29 rooms. There could be thousands, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of customers affected.
Incredibly after being challenged by The Times, Premier Inn stated that "the anomaly of higher prices being offered through the quick bookings facility would disappear next week (1st December 2009)" but so far have not offered ANY refund to Premier Inn customers who were overcharged by this problem.
The purpose of this email is to build an online petition to encourage Premier Inn to offer a full refund to any customer who has booked a more expensive room when the same room was available on another part of their website for £29.
Think you might have been affected? Learn more about what action you can take or simply sign the petition here.
Why not forward this email to a friend.
Regards
Travelodge
Hmmm... Travelodge jumping on the bandwagon I see. I can't moan. They're still cheaper. I love the 'Why not forward this email to a friend.' in bold and underlined.
Extension at Leith
We're starting our fourth month at Leith this week, and we know we're here until the middle of February, which is awesome for us. It'll take us to a year in Edinburgh in full time employment. We had a nervous wait last week with the decision, reminiscing back to last year we finished a placement around this time and couldn't find work until the February, but thankfully it has all worked out.
Competition is fierce, we're fighting over big briefs, which is great, but it also means we're getting less work out. No bad thing as we're still learning. Little things like ScottishPower and Robertson Homes come in and go out and we're getting ourselves on some interesting pitches that even come from Farm in London. Hopefully we may have some news this week on something big but I don't want to jump any guns just yet... Irn Bru, EIF, S1, Edinburgh Rugby 7s and Scottish Government are filling our days, all exciting stuff
Oh and we're badly growing moustaches for Movember. If you want to help me manage the last few days of annoying facial hair then you can donate here.
Scalextric
Ebay sent me an email this morning advertising Slot Cars.
I miss being young, they were more fun as Scalextric. Shame on you for changing it's name. Zoom. Zoom. Zoom.
Toshiba Space Chair Project
Love love love this. Beautifully simple, beautifully shot (obviously) and a great way to showcase high definition.
I'd love to know how many hours of footage they had to stare at to make this ad. What a great job that would have been.
The chair was lifted to 98,268 feet and took 83 minutes to get there. The custom made chair, made from biodegradable balsa wood, was fitted with a helium balloon and a Toshiba IK-HR1S compact camera to film the action. When the balloon burst it took just 24 minutes to fall back to earth.
The best half day shoot ever then.
Here's the making of:
I'd love to know how many hours of footage they had to stare at to make this ad. What a great job that would have been.
The chair was lifted to 98,268 feet and took 83 minutes to get there. The custom made chair, made from biodegradable balsa wood, was fitted with a helium balloon and a Toshiba IK-HR1S compact camera to film the action. When the balloon burst it took just 24 minutes to fall back to earth.
The best half day shoot ever then.
Here's the making of:
Any junk?
A nice little viral by the people at anyjunk.co.uk aimed at clearing rubbish. Unfortunately for Jedward, it involves them. I like the who's next link, low budget doesn't mean it can't work and get attention. Like it a lot. Very of the time.
SCS Strictly advert has... disappeared
Did you know the Strictly SCS £10 a month advert has been removed off their website?
I wonder why that is? Do the BBC own the copyright to the Strictly Come Dancing idea and therefore nobody can copy it? Or did somebody claim it brought the BBC into disrepute?
The new SCS £10 sofa adverts can be found here, it still hurts my eyes, and I still haven't done any scamps. Sorry.
I also found this on youtube... good times.
Sunderland University Twitter Hacked
Twitter and businesses are a delicate balance. Even more so when the content you share can be anyone's business. You are open to attack, public opinion and all sorts of PR, good and bad. Well now Sunderland University has come a cropper. It's twitter feed as been largely untouched and tumbleweed like over recent months until and pesky wannabe got into the account and has taken it upon themselves to make a fool of my ex-uni.
As you can see at the bottom of the screen, an honest twitter account to start with on March 25th.
And now its current state. I particularly love the latest tweet. Poor old Professor Fidler.
See their poor twitter here
*UPDATE*
I received an email this morning
Hi guys Good to see a couple of Sunderland Uni students getting such great placements. Just to put you right, Sunderland Uni hasn't got a Twitter page so we haven't been hacked as you suggest. The one you're blogging about is bogus. Anyone can set these things up and post whatever they like. Whoever this is they won't be taken seriously with nonsense like this. all the best,
**** (Name removed because I'm being nice)
**** *******
**** *******
Publications & Advertising Manager
University of Sunderland
I personally can't see how or why it was left dormant for so long and now this has happened. It started to tweet like an official page so why now has it suddenly changed? And why now? why not ages ago when it was first set up?
And secondly, why doesn't the uni have a twitter page? I personally think Abertay Uni have a cracking use for it, especially with its clearing page. Surely the way to react to such dodgy publicity is to create a new Sunderland Twitter page or get the misguided one removed...
It just doesn't add up I'm afraid.
Eric Testroete's Giant Halloween Head
Eric Testroete decided to take a different approach to Halloween this year. Inspired by the big-head mode seen in video games he created a faceted geosphere head. I'd talk more gibberish but to honest he says it better and with more pics on his portfolio site.
And his flickr set is here.
And his flickr set is here.Enjoy.
Another D&ED (Designed and Extremely Dreadful)
I.have.been.written.by.a.ro.bot.and.due.to.a.typo.I.won.£46.not£46k.and.yet.it.changed.my.life.
Some cracking ads
Sorry, but who makes these beauties?
I was drawn to the headline: PUBLIC.... TAKE NOTICE!Firstly why have I never written such a good headline!?! I was staring at the ad before the editorial and secondly, who puts four, yes, count them all, four full stops on? It's 1, 3, multiples of 3 or never... but never 4!
Also take note of the company. Basically Tool Hire and then check out their bad boy site . Basically they do tools.
The second winner of the D&ED (Designed and Extremely Dreadful) award goes to this. Sash and Case (top right). They do windows, apparently, though I can't tell. And the end line sums everything up. We are the best - probably.
Right....(I think I like this four dot malarkey)
These were found in ThePulse - living life in Edinburgh. More ads than content. Just how I like it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)