flight network -- price drop protection

there are ads everywhere for flight network these days. they market themselves as canada's #2 travel agency, presumably behind expedia. a quick search online reveals that at least in 2011, this was the case.

flight network's basic selling point is their price drop protection -- a feature that is not offered by any other airline or travel agency on a consistent basis. if the price of your flight drops between the time of booking and the time of travel, then you can submit a claim online ("grab a deal") and have that amount refunded to you in the form of a travel credit ("price drop dollars"). this travel credit can then be used (in that person's name only) to book future travel (flights, hotels, packages, insurance).

it's not a bad premise, especially given their claim that 1 in 3 purchased airfares will drop in price. once you purchase your ticket, you can log in to view your bookings. you can ask flight network to search the current selling price of that exact itinerary. if the price is lower, then you have the option of grabbing the deal. while you can ask flight network to scan the price an unlimited number of times, you can only grab a deal once. so if one day, the price drops by $3 and you claim that difference, then you can't make another claim for that booking even if a few days later, the fare drops by $50. the idea is to choose when to grab a deal wisely.

some other details:

• economy class flights have unlimited price drop protection
• vacation package price drops can only be claimed from the time of booking to 31 days from day of departure
• hotel bookings and hotel+flight bookings: price drop protection between time of booking and day of departure. for hotel bookings, the first named traveler receives the credit
• you can only redeem your price drop dollars on the base fare, as opposed to any taxes
• when booking an airline ticket with price drop dollars, the full amount is charged to the credit card, but a cheque is sent to you for the price drop dollar portion.
• price drop dollars expire one year after earning them.

the booking engine
i like expedia's interface more than i like flight network's. more specifically, what i like the most about expedia's is that there are ways to find the booking codes that the flight would be made under. this will affect how many frequent flyer points you can earn, and how many elite status qualifying miles you can get. for example, on a transborder flight between canada and the usa, it would be awful if you found that the flight that you wanted would only earn 50% elite qualifying miles rather than 100%.

what has recently changed (since the last time i booked with them in july 2012) is that after you've booked, the booking code is now present. i suppose if you aren't in agreement with the booking code (i.e., it is less than what you were expecting), then you can always cancel your ticket within 24 hours (i think). one can also make an educated guess as to what booking fare you will get based on what the airline is selling the tickets for (i.e., for the same flight, if the air canada website says it's a tango fare, then you're probably buying a tango fare on flight network).

i do like how the tickets are competitively priced with the airline websites, and i also like how the airline website coupon codes are also applied to the flight network prices. for instance, air canada has a coupon code "SURPRISE15" to save 15% off domestic flights. without having to type in a code, flight network has matched these. expedia, on the other hand, has not.

my previous experience with the price drop protection 
i booked a round trip flight to SFO last year through flight network. i kinda held my breath regarding the booking code, but in the end, it turned out to be a 100% fare. the price did indeed drop on my outbound ticket, but because i had a late night return on a sunday evening, the inbound ticket price went up. the net result was that i couldn't grab a deal.

because two one way tickets are almost always the same price as a round trip, it makes more sense to book one way tickets for the price drop protection. this way, your benefit will only depend on one segment as opposed to both

my latest purchase
i decided to give it a try. i booked a ticket from YYC-YVR for mid-september. the fare was $190 all in, and i know that the flight normally can be had for ~$150 all in or less. so we will see if i can grab a deal or not.

i do note that their website suggests that the air canada bag drop-off cut-off time for domestic flights is 30 minutes. this is wrong. it is 45 minutes. it's the small details like this that makes me wary ...