United Airlines
I am the lead designer for Unitedâs âShoppingâ and âRevenueâ experiences across desktop and mobile app. I successfully introduced new forms of payment that accounted for an estimated $250 million in revenues. I also led the initiative to overhaul âReshopâ (the process where customers can change their current flights). Lastly, I led the design for a new benefit initiative with our partner JP Morgan Chase.
The role:
Dec 2022 - present
Lead Revenue designer
Senior Designer
+70 projects / features
Contributions:
$250 million revenue
6% of all payments*
+20% convert at checkout**
+7% travel credits applied
Above are graphics from the Digital Gift Card
project that I led. Releasing late 2025.
Money + Miles
I led the implementation of a new form
of payment that generated
approximately $250 million in revenue per year.
Challenge
The challenge faced by customers is that they couldnât combine money (like
$U.S.) and miles to pay for flights.
Shopping for flights using miles has strict miles
balance criteria preventing
many customers from ever using their miles.
Original shop flow
Once customers choose money or miles, they are committed to viewing fares and
paying for any trip
add-ons with that form
of payment only, with no option to change.
Original flight search screen
To the left is the original flight search results screen (2023). Near the top of the screen, you can see where customers can toggle between Money and Miles
Updated flight search screen and checkout screen
After analysis and careful negotiation with stakeholders, we were able to launch a new product that addresses the fundamental payment issue faced by customers. With this new solution customers can easily toggle between Money+Miles (M+M) and Money, at any stage. Customer can also manually apply the specific amount of miles they want to apply.
Solution
Allow for a third payment avenue, âMoney + Milesâ. This new workstream is perfect for those
customers who want to take
advantage of their current miles balance, even if low, customers can also manually adjust the
amount of miles applied.
Updated shop flow
Now customers can switch between money and money & miles
(M+M) at multiple stages
throughought the shopping flow.
Conclusion: Pay form dominance
By allowing customers to toggle on âMoney + Miles,â flight search results prices can be discounted by the maximum amount of miles that customers have. This helps promote customers to buy more flights and to use their miles more frequently. Finally, on the checkout screen, the customer can fine-tune the exact amount of miles they want to apply to the total price.
Success!
After 6 months, Money + Miles as a form of payment accounted for 6% of all customer payments across all platforms (est. $250 million per year). This is more than double the number of flight purchases made with Apple Pay and Alipay, combined.
Change flights
I conceptualized and implemented an industry leading way for customers to change their flights, allowing for unparalleled flexibility across all of Unitedâs platforms.
In 2024 United Airlines invested $225 million into technology and digital innovations, one focus area was making flights more âflexibleâ. The âMore flexibilityâ strategy is a key differentiator for United Airlines brand, making the âChange flightsâ flow a key cornerstone of that strategy.
Challenge
Customers are having a hard time changing their reservations from their mobile app.
User testing / Analysis
Customers found the original change
flights flow (below) to be limiting and was
driving calls to the United service center.
Some customers were confused with the flight blocks and were not sure which flight is which.
Customers were confused on how to change the travelers on their current ticket.
Customers were confused on the pricing and which fare / cabin type they had selected.
Some customers would back track to check what their original flights were.
Prototype 1: Low fidelity wireframe
The structured layout made it easy for testers to navigate easily and pick what they would like to change.â
Testers said they were now sure that they were going to edit the return flight specifically.â The math was simple and everyone understood the exact amount they owed.
Added traditional seat-map, to prevent confusion when booking new flights
Testers were sure about the changes to the date and time of the flight and the price difference.â
Prototype 2: Mid fidelity
Testers loved the conversational style âhand-holdingâ throughout the process.â
Having the traveler section above the flights tested better.
So far so good!
Testers liked having the changes highlighted in the block, while still having access to their original flights.
Very positive response by testers on this iteration.
Solution
Given the right amount of guidance and support testers felt confident to make self-guided changes to their existing flights.
Final prototype: High fidelity
In 2024 United Airlines invested $225 million into technology and digital innovations, one focus area was making flights more âflexibleâ. The âMore flexibilityâ strategy is a key differentiator for United Airlines brand, making the âChange flightsâ flow a key cornerstone of that strategy.
Success!
By user testing different prototypes, we were able to increase our key success metics by 18%.
Conclusion
By over-communicating the actions customers can take and what their next steps in the workflow should be, we were able to remove the perceived âriskâ customers felt while making such a big decision like changing their flights.
Get in touch
You can reach me at john.s.f.lloyd@gmail.com
or write me below and I'll
get
back to you.