Expedia, Hotels.com, Vrbo

Senior Product Designer

I drove product design and strategy for all email communication products surrounding Expedia Group (EG)'s cross-brand loyalty program, One Key. The program unified rewards across Expedia, Hotels.com, and Vrbo; users were incentivized to book their entire travel journey within EG, transforming independent brand experiences into a cohesive ecosystem. This strategic initiative aimed to drive cross-brand engagement and loyalty, as well as establish EG as a comprehensive travel platform; seamless communication across all brands was vital.

I was a core contributor in developing, designing, and launching a scalable email communication product that served all 168M+ One Key members while also aligning with EG's broader email communication framework (which I also contributed to as lead product designer). My work established the design foundations for all loyalty program communications, enabling consistent user experiences across brands and the entire customer journey.

• Created foundational design system for loyalty email communication, enabling cross-brand consistency and scalability
  

• Designed and implemented core email UX/UI patterns for One Key's loyalty communications
  

• Established company-wide standards for all loyalty program communications
  

• Drove alignment across principle product, design system, and Brand teams to successfully implement multiple One Key related communication suites/campaigns, ensuring technical feasibility and consistency across One Key products while supporting rebranding and increased user engagement initiatives
  

• Established and maintained a design system and resource library with reusable components, consulting cross-functionally for new additions while also reducing design-to-development time

16 Core Members / ~ 30 Cross-Team Members

1.5 years

Expedia Group (EG)'s flagship brands were functioning independently; most users didn't know that Expedia, Hotels.com, and Vrbo were all owned by EG. The business initiated a company-wide rebrand to move them towards an updated, cohesive, and centralized business model, while also developing a cross-brand loyalty program to make EG a "one stop shop" for traveler needs.

EG aimed to consolidate its loyalty offerings by merging Expedia and Hotels.com's separate rewards programs into One Key, a singular cross-brand loyalty program that would also extended loyalty benefits to Vrbo for the first time.

The program strove to incentivize users with cross-brand benefits, boost brand education and loyalty, and increase overall brand and app engagement through elevated and rewarding user experiences. Users would accrue rewards benefits eligible for use across all three brands' user accounts; this foundation was intended to allow cross-brand upsells, driving both new member joins, reactivation, and increased loyalty with return customers.

The project goal was to design a scalable email communication system for One Key that would drive program adoption, increase cross-brand bookings, and enhance user engagement—particularly crucial as email serves as the primary touchpoint for many users' booking and loyalty interactions.

The One Key communication product would create an internal company design system and the associated external user system for email communication.

• Backend users = EG Employees: UX and brand designers, product teams, engineering, production, data and loyalty teams, etc.

• Front end users = EG Users: travelers engaging across all sections of the business would receive communications from and interact with the One Key product, benefitting from the consistency of a centralized communication system.

• Initial Scope: Create a One Key-specific email product and design system (within the existing company-wide email design system and deployment platform), standardizing email communications across Expedia, Hotels.com, and Vrbo.

• Challenge: Project complexity was significantly underestimated. At the time we were asked to create the email communication product, One Key's overall product design wasn't completed. Work was happening across siloed teams, and pertinent design system components and branding aspects weren't finalized, creating added levels of project intricacies.
  

• Creating scalable solutions to integrate into a product still under active development

• Accelerated timeline

• Concurrent company-wide rebranding and knowledge gaps from ongoing reorganization

• Technical limitations of deployment platform and available data

As this project spanned multiple teams and iterations, my role flexed to accommodate the workflow and project needs:

• System essentials: Led strategic framework development for One Key email communication product, identifying critical product information gaps and implementing solutions that aligned with core business objectives and user needs.
  

• Design system creation: Drove development of One Key's email communication design system, ensuring seamless integration with in-app experiences, scalability across all loyalty touchpoints, alignment with EG's master email design system, and support for complex, data-driven communications
  

• Interdisciplinary collaboration: Advocated for and fostered cross-functional workflows between design, brand, and data teams, resulting in a unified travel experience platform that enhanced customer satisfaction.
  

• System details: Established cohesive product specifications across design, brand, legal, and technical requirements, ensuring seamless implementation and regulatory compliance.
  

• System governance and scaling: Developed and maintained comprehensive design system and documentation in Figma, creating reusable templates that increased team efficiencies and ensured consistent implementation across all email communication post-launch. Onboarded designers and teams across the business and acted as a resource and consultant to teams as they learned the One Key product system.
  

I contributed largely to the strategic review of the One Key program architecture to understand its integration across Expedia, Hotels.com, and Vrbo's rebranding initiatives. Applying systems thinking methodology, I evaluated how various components would interact within each brand framework while supporting the new loyalty program's diverse user groups.

Working cross-functionally with design, brand, legal, loyalty, and technical teams, I verified product specifications to ensure seamless implementation across all customer journey touchpoints. The technical scope was extensive, encompassing tiered loyalty structures, point accrual systems, benefit qualifications, and expiration rules - all while adhering to new branding and design system requirements.

A unique challenge emerged as the One Key product underwent active pre-launch development simultaneously with our work. This meant managing evolving elements from granular design system components (colors, icons) to major program features (tier specifics, claims, copy). The project's complexity was amplified by high senior leadership investment following EG's company reorganization, requiring careful stakeholder management throughout the development process.

We developed a loyalty-specific email design system framework that effectively communicated One Key program features based on aligned cross-team requirements.

• Developed comprehensive loyalty design system within existing company-wide design system, standardizing the implementation of loyalty features, reducing development time, and ensuring consistency

• Created flexible design frameworks that accommodated dynamic, data-heavy communications such as tiered loyalty structures, point systems, and benefit management across multiple user touchpoints

• Navigated evolving product requirements and stakeholder needs while maintaining design system integrity and brand cohesion

• Established scalable design foundations that supported future program evolution and feature additions

Through iterative wireframes and high-fidelity mockups, we optimized One Key's design system integration within existing product flows. This strategic approach to communicating member benefits and incentives ensured clear benefit presentation and program education, directly supporting user engagement goals and driving program adoption. The resulting design framework effectively showcased membership value propositions while maintaining brand consistency.

The One Key program and associated email design system launched successfully in Summer 2023, becoming the enterprise standard across Expedia Group and its flagship brands. This framework powered the program's high-volume communications, including multi-million monthly acquisition campaigns, while ensuring consistent brand experience and scalable implementation across all loyalty program touchpoints.

Post-launch, I spearheaded comprehensive documentation of the One Key email design system to enable enterprise-wide scaling. This included developing detailed brand guidelines within the email design system, Figma documentation, and reusable communication templates that standardized implementation across teams. By establishing clear design patterns and workflows, we significantly improved organizational efficiency and reduced time-to-market for new loyalty communications.

As design library owner, I worked alongside my manager to lead the successful onboarding of design teams across the organization, facilitating seamless adoption of the new framework. This systematic approach ensured consistent user communication throughout the loyalty program lifecycle while reducing design overhead and enabling teams to quickly respond to evolving program needs.

Following launch, I supported the One Key design system's evolution through quarterly feature releases and program expansions. Working within broader business initiatives, I managed and refined the component library to accommodate sub-branded campaigns and new product launches, including two One Key credit card products.

As system maintainer, I ensured design coherence by aligning loyalty program components with evolving brand and product requirements. I also contributed largely to new design work and campaigns within the One Key program.

• Gross bookings (up 8%) and hotel bookings (up 10%) increased YoY, among various other indicators, proving increased confidence in the business, flagship brands, and the understood value in the One Key loyalty program.

• Accelerated development cycles through standardized, reusable design components and patterns, enabling faster time-to-market for new program campaigns and features, reducing production time by 35%, and simplifying implementation across teams

• Established a specific email communication design system for One Key, EG's first-ever cross-brand loyalty program, enabling a successful program launch and tiered adoption of the design system company-wide.
  

• Enhanced cross-brand consistency by integrating the loyalty framework within the existing company-wide design system
  

• Successfully integrated across multiple brands, with system resilience during program updates and expansions

• Future-proofed the design system through extensible architecture, supporting ongoing program evolution without requiring system rebuilds