My personal understanding is as follows, page #2 in the PDF shared by Ice.
FinalPrice = InvoicePrice - PriceIncreaseSinceOrderDate
InvoicePrice is determined when the Window Sticker is generated, maybe a week or so before the build starts.
PriceIncreaseSinceOrderDate is what the dealer should honor, BUT, the dealer has 2 options to give you this money:
1) Give you a PriceIncreaseSinceOrderDate discount, knowing that the will get the money back from Ford, if everything is OK
2) You will pay InvoicePrice at vehicle pick-up, then later, when Ford send the dealer the PriceIncreaseSinceOrderDate, the dealer will send you a check.
Even in the "Plan rice Calculation" they have a note saying "If vehicle was ordered prior to the announcement of a price increase, it may be eligible for price protection.". Normally if you ordered it, it should be protected, but I think COVP had to be done at order date. COVP automatically price protects the vehicle if sold to the person that placed the order and everything matches with the COVP information.
I have an X-Plan order with my local dealer, and I got the COVP confirmation number, and every time my dealer tells me that I'm Price Protected.
Another thing, I don't see this information in the thread, but it seems you initially ordered a MY22, are you a rollover to MY23? or you are picking up a MY22? Price Protection is valid across a single MY. If you are a rollover you should have a private offer, I don't know if it's big enough to cover the price difference. Tim Bartz talks about this in his lives, roll-overs are not price protected because they have private offers. But not sure what happens if there are price increases after roll-over, are you price protected to roll-over date or not. I know for MY23 there was a $1000 price increase on XLTs since mid August - I think it was around Oct 1st-4th.