Flight Centre
Designing A Loyalty App That Actually Feels Loyal
TEAM
Product Managers
Developers
Design Manager
ROLE
UX Lead
Prototyping
End to End Design
User Research
TOOLS
Figma
Miro
Great Question (Testing Platform)
User Testing
YEAR
January 2025-November 2025
SUMMARY
Reinventing Loyalty From the Ground Up
In 2024 Flight Centre handed me a blank slate: reinvent loyalty from the ground up. The result was a first-of-its-kind rewards system where every traveler builds their own set of benefits - a core set of benefits plus three personalized perks chosen from a suite of everyday travel luxuries.
PROBLEM
Loyalty Felt Broken for Flight Centre’s Frequent Flyers
Frequent travelers weren’t just hunting for better deals, they wanted to feel seen. But Flight Centre’s digital touchpoints told a different story: rewards were scattered, earning was unclear, and there was no single place to understand or redeem anything. The experience felt fragmented, and so did users’ sense of loyalty. Before designing a solution, my challenge was to uncover what truly drives loyalty today and how industry-wide shifts in traveler behavior were reshaping expectations altogether.
SOLUTION
A Loyalty Program That Feels Personal
I built Flight Centre’s loyalty program from the ground up around one core idea: choice creates value. Every member starts with a core set of benefits and then adds three personalized perks tailored to how they travel. The experience is designed to make joining, selecting perks, and upgrading membership feel clear, rewarding, and genuinely worth it.
OPPORTUNITY + RESEARCH
80% of Loyalty Programs Overwhelm Users — Opportunity for Flexibility
With no existing loyalty framework, competitive analysis set the stage for defining the program. I studied loyalty models across travel, retail, and subscription products to see how leading brands structure rewards, communicate value, and guide users through membership tiers.
I conducted user interviews and usability tests to uncover pain points around sign-up, perk selection, and understanding the value of rewards.
This research revealed two major gaps in the market:
Most programs overwhelm users with rigid hierarchies, and very few offer meaningful choice
These insights shaped the opportunity for a more flexible, user-led loyalty experience—and guided the hierarchy, navigation, and core flows of the product.
Card Sorting Categories
TESTING & IMPROVEMENTS
92% of Users Preferred the New Design After Testing
Usability testing revealed that key parts of the loyalty experience—upgrade value, account clarity, and benefit selection—were confusing and risked undermining engagement.
To address this, I synthesized insights from core flows, prioritized friction points, and iterated low-fidelity concepts into polished, test-ready high-fidelity designs.
The updated designs:
Clarified upgrade value
Made account benefits easier to understand
Reduced decision friction which strengthened conversion and user flow
*Similar improvements were applied across other key flows.
STRATEGY + ALIGNMENT
From Conflicting Goals to Shared Vision
CLASHING PRIORITIES
The loyalty program had hit a standstill. Marketing, design, and CX leaders each had different priorities, causing confusion around the perk hierarchy and upgrade value. With timelines shrinking and retention goals tied to launch, we needed alignment fast.
FACILITATING WORKSHOPS TO UNCOVER CONFLICTS
I initiated and facilitated a series of Rose-Bud-Thorn workshops to bring leaders together, surface conflicting priorities, and guide decision-making around perk hierarchy, upgrade clarity, and flow simplification. These sessions replaced circular debates with structured, actionable conversations.
ALIGNED ON 4 KEY DECISIONS IN 1 MONTH
Within a month, stakeholders aligned on four key decisions that unblocked the work, resulting in:
A simplified perk-selection flow
Clearer upgrade messaging
A perk hierarchy aligned to business goals
Reduced design churn and faster delivery timelines
Design Workshop Stakeholder Alignment
Designed Once, Branded Four Ways
OPTIMIZATION
Boosting Sign Ups Through Optimized Flows
The loyalty program could only succeed if the core journey felt effortless. So I mapped every path a traveler could take to uncover friction and unexpected behaviors, including:
Sign-up / Sign-in
Landing pages
Purchases
Deactivation
Multi-brand variations (4 brands, each with unique colors, typography, and responsive rules)
Using rapid prototyping, I tested and refined each step, streamlining navigation while adding moments of delight. The result was an end-to-end flow that made joining, engaging, and upgrading feel seamless.
Design of different flows
Journey Map
NEXT STEPS
Continuously Expand and Iterate
EXPAND TO NEW AUDIENCES
Extend the loyalty program to additional markets, such as Canada and the USA, to understand how different consumer segments respond and tailor experiences to regional preferences.
ITERATE ON PERSONALIZATION
Introduce more personalized rewards and content based on user behavior, preferences, and travel patterns to increase engagement and conversions.