About FlightHub

FlightHub™, a Momentum Ventures subsidiary, is a leading North American online travel agency (OTA) based in Montreal, Canada. FlightHub proudly serves millions of travelers each year, enabling more people to visit new places and explore new cultures. FlightHub's goal is to offer the most affordable flights, optimal itineraries, and exceptional customer service. The leading online travel agency (OTA) believes that broadening travel possibilities and connecting people across borders increases human consciousness, reduces fear, and inspires positive change. Founded in 2012, FlightHub has facilitated more than 30 million connections.

Challenge: Addressing inaccurate data and increased user friction

FlightHub aims to provide their customers with a seamless, fast, and secure booking experience — all while identifying and preventing fraud by ensuring legitimate customers can quickly purchase tickets. 

In 2021, FlightHub faced a significant challenge in its fraud prevention approach: Its existing legacy device identification system struggled to accurately identify fraudulent transactions while maintaining a seamless customer experience. It continuously delivered a high number of false positives, which frustrated legitimate users by making it difficult to complete purchases. The false positives also led to delays in issuing tickets since manual reviews were needed, costing the company valuable time and resources. 

“The tipping point for us was the negative impact on good customers when our former service frequently flagged legitimate transactions as fraudulent," shared Drayton Williams, Director of Fraud Prevention at FlightHub. "This system led to delays in ticket processing and increased manual reviews, leaving customers waiting unnecessarily. In some cases, genuine customers were outright blocked from booking, resulting in poor user experiences and loss of confidence in our service.”

As FlightHub continued to expand their customer-facing services with new supported regions and travel opportunities, it became clear that their existing device intelligence needed more robust and accurate data to handle the growing threats to their services, like fraudulent transactions and account takeover. The business required a robust, scalable tool that provided consistently accurate data points so their fraud teams could make better-informed decisions — which led them to Fingerprint.

Solution: Upgrading FlightHub’s device intelligence and fraud engine with Fingerprint enterprise

FlightHub turned to Fingerprint due to the platform’s industry-leading accuracy in device identification and ease of implementation, which are crucial for FlightHub’s lean development team. The team integrated Fingerprint into their fraud rules engine in just a few weeks, and they were operating with a fully trained fraud model in three months. 

The implementation of Fingerprint enterprise has been a success for FlightHub. Using the reliable and accurate data collected by Fingerprint, FlightHub’s fraud team built a fraud model that significantly reduced false positives and sped up the transaction process for legitimate customers, resulting in reduced transaction friction for their customers and increased friction for fraudsters. 

While onboarding Fingerprint, FlightHub tested the device intelligence data it collected and quickly noted its speed, accuracy, and clarity, filling the gaps left by their previous solution. In production and as part of their fraud detection improvements,  Fingerprint enabled the team to successfully identify patterns, such as a single device being linked to multiple suspicious accounts — and in one case, specifically detected cases where one device was tied to 20 different emails. This level of accuracy helped FlightHub uncover fraudulent behavior, significantly reducing fraud risks and improving overall confidence in the legitimacy of their transactions. 

Additionally, unlike their previous system, which required advanced expertise to navigate, Fingerprint’s user-friendly design and clear technical documentation enabled the FlightHub team to quickly understand device intelligence and effectively detect fraud without extensive training. 

"The implementation process with Fingerprint was incredibly smooth and efficient, especially considering our small development team" Drayton explained. "Within weeks, we fully integrated the solution into our fraud rules engine. What stood out was the seamless transition — we experienced minimal disruption, and Fingerprint was providing complete global coverage in just a few months."

FlightHub’s experience with Fingerprint enterprise highlights how effective device identification can strike the right balance between security and customer experience. By choosing a solution that is both accurate and easy to implement, FlightHub has been able to prevent fraud while maintaining the trust and satisfaction of its customers. Fingerprint will play a vital role in the company's ongoing fraud prevention strategy as it grows and introduces new products and offerings to its expanding customer base.

If you are a marketplace company looking to enhance your security measures while minimizing user friction, consider incorporating Fingerprint enterprise into your fraud prevention strategy. FlightHub’s success story demonstrates the incredible benefits of this approach, from reduced false positives to increased protection against account takeovers and payment fraud.