IANZ

Airline Hotel Booking UX Audit

A comparative usability study of hotel-booking experiences on three major airline sites in the US — Delta Airlines, American Airlines, and United Airlines — focusing on wayfinding, language support, currency, and hotel discovery.

Three major airlines

Overview

Related Fields

UX/UI Design, Human-Computer Interaction, Usability Testing

Methods

Task-based usability testing, observational notes, heuristic review

Platforms

Delta, American, United Airlines hotel-booking sites

Research Goals & Tasks

The study evaluated how efficiently users can find and book hotel rooms via airline websites. Three core tasks were used to expose navigation, search, and internationalization issues:

  • 1. Book any room in Los Angeles
  • 2. Book a suite at W Boston
  • 3. Attempt to book in a non-English language with foreign currency

Participants: James L, Exia S, James G...

Research Flow

Research flow diagram

Key Insights

Delta Airlines

  • Ambiguous information architecture led users to the wrong product (e.g., Vacations vs. Stays).
  • Search often surfaced partners or irrelevant results instead of the hotel details page.
  • No clear path for special requests during checkout.
  • Inconsistent language support beyond flight-booking pages; limited currency options.

American Airlines

  • Some hotels were missing or surfaced with limited room types.
  • Outdated information observed on hotel pages.
  • Restricted language options (only a few languages supported).
  • Search results didn’t consistently align with user intent.

United Airlines

  • Language switching was unreliable and hard to discover.
  • Translation errors (e.g., currency labeled under “Location”).
  • Price inconsistencies across currencies suggested unclear conversion logic.

Design Recommendations

Delta Airlines

  • Clarify IA by separating Vacation, Car Rental, and Hotel Stays into distinct, well-labeled paths.
  • Route hotel searches directly to Delta Stays with full property details.
  • Add a universal “Special Request” module to checkout flows.
  • Extend full i18n and currency visibility across all services.

American Airlines

  • Expand hotel inventory and ensure all room types are available.
  • Keep hotel data fresh; surface update timestamps where he lpful.
  • Broaden language support and streamline language switching.
  • Improve result relevance and disambiguation in search.

United Airlines

  • Make language/currency controls prominent and persistent across journeys.
  • Fix translation taxonomy and review content quality in non-English locales.
  • Standardize currency conversion using current exchange rates and disclose logic.

Process & Evidence

All the participants completed the defined tasks while their screens and timings were recorded. Observations were time-stamped and mapped to findings to maintain traceability.

Outcome

The audit produced a prioritized set of UX issues and concrete design actions for each airline site. The next phase would prototype improved navigation labels, a unified language/currency header, and a standardized special-request module, followed by A/B testing on critical flows.