Price Lock
A product to help make travel planning a little easier.
Project overview
Planning a trip doesn’t always go smoothly. Sometimes, you’re not sure if you’ll get the time off, or you’re waiting to hear back if a friend or loved one can travel with you. While you are waiting, you look at flights and see a great price. Then you wonder, what if the price goes up? Knowing how often prices change, it can be stressful if you aren’t ready to book. That’s where Price Lock can help.
Problem statement
I’m a traveler who is planning my next trip
I’m trying to compare prices for flights
But I’m not quite ready to book
Because my spouse isn’t sure about getting the time off and needs a few more days
Which makes me feel stressed because the prices have already gone up since last week.
The solution
Give travelers the ability to lock a flight price for a few days if they need more time to plan. If the price goes up before they book the flight, the traveler gets the difference back, but if it goes down, they pay the lower price. They’ll get a reminder before their lock expires.
Challenges
We knew there were a number of challenges going into this project. Here are some of the biggest things that we would not be able to solve before phase 1 launch:
•Airlines are the only ones able to actually ‘lock’ a seat,. We only had the ability to lock the price. This means that the flight or fare class might sell out before the traveler books.
•Our system can’t differentiate between the airline changing the flight (even by a few minutes) vs the flight selling out, so Price Lock is automatically canceled.
•If a traveler purchases Price Lock and the price of the flight goes up before they book, they have to pay the new price and wait for a refund. This might lead to sticker shock if the traveler locked the price for $250, and they then go book their flight and the price is now $400.
The process
Research had started on Price Lock (then known as Price Freeze) a couple years back. Our team reviewed the research and put together some competitor insights. We examined what wording competitors used, as well as the overall user experience. Then we completed the following exercises as part of our discovery.
Empathy map
I led an empathy mapping session with our group. The session included a UX designer, a UX design manager, our program manager, and our product manager. I broke it into sections for the shopping and post-purchase phase. As we went through the exercise, we took into account the research, our competitors, our own experiences as travelers, and the known limitations of the product.
Top themes
After creating stickies for each point in the journey, we grouped them into themes. There were a number of mixed emotions.
•Relieved: travelers were able to buy time. They didn’t have to stress if their traveling partners weren’t 100% sure if they could go on the trip.
•Happy: the price went down after they locked, so they were able to purchase at a lower price. Everything went smoothly in the booking process.
•Deceived: the price went down after they locked. They could have just waited, not purchased Price Lock, and would still get the lower price.
•Doubtful: the price stayed the same, so was it worth it to buy Price Lock?
•Confused: the price went up after they locked. If they locked the price, why do they have to pay the higher price and wait for a refund?
•Angry: when the traveler goes to book the flight, it is now unavailable. They were told they had 5 days to book, but now it is sold out and they have to start from scratch.
Journey map and value prop canvas
Taking the top actions and themes from the empathy map, I worked with my UX design partner to fill out a journey map for the various touchpoints needed. I then looked at the content needs for phase 1, as well long-term opportunities for a future release. We also filled out a value prop canvas. We struggled to come up with “pain relievers” for our travelers. This is something we had planned on revisiting after additional research and later releases.
After completing these exercises, we put together some guiding principles.
•Comprehension and clarity: since this is such a complex product, we need to make it very clear to travelers what they are getting. We want to make it clear that they are buying Price Lock, not booking the flight. We also want to make it clear that this is a fee, not a deposit like some of our competitors have.
•Transparency: there are a number of limitations with the product. We need to make travelers aware so that they know what they are buying.
•Trustworthy: we want to keep their trust. We don’t want travelers to think we are deceiving them by not being transparent.
Our approach
When thinking about how this product can help travelers, in our ideal state, we would offer peace of mind as well as the ability to lock in some savings. However, given all of the limitations, the best theme to focus on for phase one was the idea of buying more time to plan. We wanted to catch travelers early in the shopping phase in case they weren’t quite ready. In a future release, we wanted to not just lock one particular flight, but all the flights that were listed on the search results page. However, for the first release, due to limitations, we were only able to place our product on the booking screen right before travelers check out. On this screen, travelers can add seats, bags, and other add-ons we offer. But by the time travelers get to this point, their intention is to book the flight. This caused additional problems as we were trying to launch.
Explorations
I explored many different variations and took these two options into testing. Travelers preferred the version with the name in the header. Since this is a new product, we agreed that it’s important to call out the name. When “See how it works” is clicked, a modal with more information opens up. The goal of the modal was to give travelers key details without overwhelming them with information.
The key things I wanted to tell them were:
•This is a fee–some of our competitors use a deposit method. In early testing, people assumed this would also be a deposit.
•The expiration date.
•The fact that the flight or fare class may sell out before they book.
•What happens if the price goes up.
•What happens if the price goes down.
Modal explorations
I experimented with the expiration date placement. I thought it would get lost in a bullet and it looked too crowded under the header. I considered saying “locking the price does not lock in a seat” or that tickets are subject to availability, but I wanted to be clear that it may sell out.
During testing, travelers were excited about the fact that if the price goes down, they pay the lower price. Because of this, I decided to move the bullet up in the next iteration. Travelers weren’t sure how they got their refund if the price went up. I added the word “automatic” so they know don’t have to submit anything.
Our legal team asked me to add in that the Price Lock fee was non-refundable, however, having that as the first bullet seemed unfriendly. To avoid extra footnotes or bullets, I combined this info with the bullet about flights selling out. Placing it outside a bullet felt awkward and less transparent.
When we tested this version, travelers only noticed that the flight might sell out when they got to the next screen. Since some cases allowed refunds, legal ended up being okay with omitting ‘non-refundable’ at this step.
Legal also wanted me to add in the refund cap, but the modal already had a lot of info. We compromised by adding additional details on the checkout screen and confirmation email to try to keep the modal scannable.
User testing showed we needed a simpler flow. Instead of making travelers exit the flow and return, we added a direct link to the Price Lock checkout. I restructured the content to try to make it scannable and my designer added visual elements to help break up the text. Based on team feedback, I added a functional header. I also clarified that travelers must book before Price Lock expires.
An alternate way of booking
Our UX pod was concerned because Price Lock was being treated as an add-on (like a seat or insurance), when in fact, it’s a separate product. There was also some confusion from leadership about the difference between this product and another add-on product called Price Drop Protection. We went back to the drawing board and worked with the UX team that handles the flights search results to see if we could revisit offering Price Lock earlier in the flow. Unfortunately, that couldn’t happen. When thinking of how to best differentiate Price Lock from purchasing a flight or other add-ons, we realized we had to treat this as an alternate way of booking.
•If a traveler selects “Book today” they see the typical selections offered with a flight. If they select “Lock the price” then they don’t see the option to choose add-ons such as seats or bags. Instead, they get more information about Price Lock. We really pushed to have “Booking options” at the top of the screen, but we weren’t able to do that.
•Our legal team was once asking me to add the refund cap as well when travelers will see the refund. We took this into testing, and travelers felt overwhelmed with the bullets. They said they wouldn’t even consider this.
•In the live experience, when you book a flight, the price listed is the total price instead of per traveler. To follow this pattern, we decided to show the total price under “Booking options” as well as at the bottom of the screen. During testing, people were confused about the cost and assumed the total was per traveler.
•In earlier drafts, I explored using “the Price is locked until” or “Price Lock expires.” I updated it to “Book before” because it makes it clear they need to come back to book their flight and that there is some urgency.
•To help with the confusion around pricing, I added the per traveler price for both the flight and Price Lock under “Booking options.” Based on feedback from the previous round of legal testing, legal agreed that we could have slimmed down bullets on this screen. We would have more information on the checkout page and email. Version 2 tested much better.
Where we ended up
Because of all the limitations that we wouldn’t be able to solve before phase 1 of our launch, this project was paused. I had spent around 9 months on Price Lock. Working on a project with so many challenges meant that we were constantly thinking about worst case scenarios and edge cases, especially for our post-booking flow. Many times, people only think about the happy path. We were able to leave recommendations for an end-to-end flow should this project get picked up again.
Price Lock shopping, confirmation, and onboarding email
As mentioned earlier, the slimmed down bullets did well in testing, so I had that on the booking screen. Early on in testing, people said that they liked having more info on the checkout screen. They said it felt like a safety net before they completed their purchase. We also thought it was appropriate to have more info here since this is where people review everything one last time before they purchase. We made it collapsible in case didn’t want to see it. This follows the pattern of how flights are displayed on this page. Once the traveler makes the purchase, they see a confirmation screen with a few key details. A confirmation email is then sent with an overview of how it works and a link for travelers to get to their locked flight.
Price Lock active states
In today’s experience, travelers can see their bookings in a section of the app called Trips. Because Price Lock is its own booking, this was the appropriate place to give updates about price changes. They can book their locked flight from this screen. In an ideal state, we would send travelers notifications when there is a price change or when flights are selling out.
Price Lock redeemed states
After the traveler books their flight with Price Lock, they will see a screen with the price details.
Price Lock is no longer active
If Price Lock is no longer active, a traveler will see one of these screens depending on the use case.