User journey: travel rewards

💬 Open Chat
1

Going to rewards → travel reveals three taps on top: “flights”, “hotels & resorts” and “travel”.

  1. Tapping on “flights” opens a list view with “Flight Hub App” offering 2% cashback as the only item in the list. Clicking on “Flight Hub App” opens a more detailed description and a button to download the app + tracker to track 2% for every 2 purchases of any amount. Rewarding users with cashback every two purchases can create a frustrating experience because it forces users to choose between booking flights separately to get more rewards
    vs booking separate flights as one ticket to minimize disruption that may occur with flight cancellation or rescheduling. For example, I recently booked three separate tickets to maximize rewards where I would normally book one.

In this case, this reward structure can impact user behaviour in unintended ways and create frustrating experiences where a different reward structure would incentivize users to make different choices that will improve their experience.

While map view is not a default view for flights, it is available and does not generate anything users can interact with when clicked. Searching for flights on a map and booking them in the app would be very convenient.

  1. “Hotels & Resorts” and “Travel” tabs seem to generate the same offers with hotels and resorts. It is not clear what is the purpose of the “travel” tab as it seems to duplicate “hotels & rewards”.

  2. In “Hotels & Rewards” as well as “Travel”, map view it the default view. By default, map is focused on the area where user is located. Which means that if you are in Calgary, you will see hotels in Calgary around you. It is customary to book hotels in advance wherever you travel instead of arriving at location and then searching for hotels around you that offer rewards, and people would choose hotels on the price per night as opposed to the % of rewards cashback offered – percentage is irrelevant when the actual price is unknown.

  3. In popular travel apps, default view will start user journey with “where are you going?”, “explore places” or something along these lines. Then users can enter where they are going and search for deals that are available there. Alternatively, users can explore where they can go and choose based on whatever options are available.

  4. Similarly to flights, there is no way to search for hotels by inputting dates, seeing prices and booking them through the app. There is a link to move to partner hotel website, but the user flow would only work if someone is looking for a very particular brand to begin with and wants to book directly on their website. In reality, many travellers would prefer to compare different hotels first and see which booking system will give them the best option to book.