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10 min est. read
Overview
My Role
Senior Product Designer
Timeline
2022-2024
14
0
First
Sasta Refund gave users free cancellation on any flight for a small fee added at booking. It only worked because the wallet existed, refunds landed instantly rather than going back through the banking system. The two features were designed to reinforce each other.
As the feature matured, Sasta Refund was also surfaced earlier through Sasta Flex, a bundled fare option at the fare selection step. Users who didn't take it there saw it again at checkout. Two touchpoints, different user mindsets, same product.
Not every user could cover a flight on a single card. Partial Payments let users split a booking across any combination of payment methods in any amounts, as long as they totalled the booking price. After each payment the remaining amount updated in real time and the next method selection was immediately available.
Users were dropping off at the traveler details step not because they didn't want to book, but because they weren't ready to commit and didn't trust the price would hold. Price Freeze let users pay a small non-refundable fee to lock a price for up to 72 hours. If the price dropped they paid less. If it rose they paid the locked price.
I identified the traveler details page as the highest drop-off point and added a targeted prompt at the bottom of the form. Users who had already invested time filling in their details were more likely to respond to a low-friction commitment option than users earlier in the funnel.
One proposal that didn't make it through was moving the addon upsell to after the traveler details step. My hypothesis was that users who had already invested time entering their information would be more committed and more likely to add optional features. Engineering constraints in the booking flow architecture made it infeasible at the time. The thinking remains sound.
Impact
Refund processing time for Sasta Wallet users dropped from 14 days to seconds. Sastaticket became the first travel platform in the region to offer a built-in wallet. Each feature built on the one before it. The wallet made Sasta Refund possible. Sasta Refund created the trust that made other features viable. Price Freeze addressed the hesitation that was causing drop-off at the final step before booking.
14
0
First
The most interesting thing about this work wasn't any individual feature. It was watching how each decision created or closed options for the next thing. The addon placement restructure wasn't just about addons. It created a structural foundation that every subsequent feature built on top of. Designing across 18 months taught me to think in systems, not screens.