Expedia: Hotels, Flights, Cars

What it does

Expedia is an all-in-one travel hub for booking flights, hotels, activities, and rental cars. The app aims to be a comprehensive trip planning partner, from initial inspiration to managing itineraries. It consolidates booking across its family of brands, including Hotels.com and Vrbo, under a single user account and rewards program.

Where it shines

Expedia stands out by integrating powerful planning tools directly into the booking experience. The 'Trips' feature (09:25) is more than a wishlist; it allows users to organize saved hotels, flights, and activities into distinct, named itineraries, which is excellent for planning complex vacations. Furthermore, the integration of a ChatGPT assistant (08:48) helps users with early-stage brainstorming, providing structured travel ideas and linking them directly to bookable options within the app.

UX highlights

Unified Account: The app clearly communicates that one account works across Expedia, Hotels.com, and Vrbo (00:47), framing the sign-up process as a one-time entry into a larger ecosystem.
Contextual Saving: When a user saves a hotel, a toast notification confirms it was added to their specific trip (02:07), providing clear and immediate feedback.
Powerful Filtering: The hotel search offers extensive filtering options, including a price-per-night slider and numerous amenity toggles (02:16), allowing for highly specific searches.
Price Tracking: Users can opt to 'Watch prices' for a flight search (04:52), a valuable feature that encourages repeat engagement by turning the app into a monitoring tool.
Visual Home Screen: The main dashboard greets the user by name and uses large, image-heavy cards to promote different types of stays and destinations (01:21).
Trips Dashboard: The 'Trips' tab acts as a central hub where users can see all their saved items, upcoming bookings, and planning progress in one organized place (10:05).

Monetization & growth

This video does not show a subscription paywall. Monetization is transactional, based on commissions from bookings. The app focuses on growth through its unified rewards program, which encourages loyalty across its family of brands. The 'Invite' feature on trip plans (09:26) also points to a social growth loop, allowing users to collaborate on planning and introduce new users to the platform.

Who it’s for

Expedia is for travelers who want a single app to manage their entire travel process, from research to booking and organization. It caters to both decisive bookers who know their destination and dates, as well as planners who are in the early stages of ideation. The 'Trips' feature makes it particularly useful for people organizing multi-stop or complex vacations with various components.

Notes & opportunities

The mandatory sign-up flow at the beginning is a significant point of friction. Allowing users to browse as a guest first could improve initial engagement and let them experience the app's value before asking for a commitment. While the AI chat is a great feature for inspiration, its integration could be deeper, for instance, by allowing users to directly add AI-suggested items to a trip plan with a single tap.