Credit cards and their affiliated travel portals offer a long list of benefits, from yearly travel credits to bonus points for bookings made through them.
I recently booked a Cathay Pacific business class ticket using Capital One Travel (for my BA Gold for Life run – read more here) and used points sitting on my account to offset the price (this proves how little value airline miles have today, as this was the best use of them in my specific case).
You can access Capital One here.
So, I was surprised that I received an email below a couple of days ago, as I was not aware that they offered this and I hadn’t paid any attention to it during the booking process:
Capital One’s Price Drop Protection:
How price drop protection works
If you’re looking at flights and the price prediction tool recommends that you book now, you’ll get free price drop protection. That means Capital One Travel keeps monitoring the price for 10 days after you book the flight. If the price drops during that monitoring period, Capital One Travel will issue you the difference in price, up to $50, in the form of a travel credit. For example, if the price drops by $75, you’ll get $50 in travel credit, and if the price drops by $35, you’ll get $35 in travel credit.
So, if the tool recommends booking now, they offer a price drop credit for the next 10 days with a maximum value of $50.
Conclusion
I understand why Capital One Travel offers this “protection.”
The goal is to get you to book then (“reassuring”) by offering credit if the fare for some reason goes down in the next 10 days.
I have booked with Capital One Travel a few times, and this was the first time the price has dropped within the following 10 days, which qualifies under this protection.
I’m not sure how much this guarantee makes sense, however, as I cannot think of it swaying many to book that otherwise wouldn’t.
Have you had any luck with these “price protection” programs? Please comment below.
