House of Fraser ad banned for most generous reward card claim

The leaflet, headlined "Discover a world of rewards", included text stating: "The most generous rewards programme offered by any UK department store group.

"We give our customers more points for every £1 spent than the reward programmes offered by other large UK department store groups."

The Advertising Standards Authority received a single complaint from someone challenging whether House of Fraser could substantiate its claim because he believed another department store offered more points per pound spent, which also equated to more vouchers to redeem in store.

House of Fraser defended the leaflet claiming that in addition to the basic points per pound reward, other benefits included:

• A quarterly average of £1.74m in reward vouchers issued to Mastercard and account card holders.
• Exclusive discounts at four annual sales events.
• Up to 11 exclusive national events since the relaunch, at which discounts and points offers were available.

The ASA upheld the complaint noting that although House of Fraser cardholders received a number of exclusive offers and had earned an average of 5.15 points per cardholder per month since April 2008, this average was partly the result of special offers, which were not included in the points per pound comparison in the ad.

The advertising watchdog said that taking into account any special offers that stores offered their cardholders from time to time and which were not mentioned in the ad, the store referred to by the complainant offered more points per pound spent and more vouchers to redeem in store than House of Fraser.

The ASA concluded that the ad must not appear again in its current form.