Case Study: Costco Travel achieves intuitive online bookings and 82% fewer support calls with UserTesting

How Costco Travel built a better online travel booking experience

Costco Travel, a multibillion-dollar retail travel business serving millions of members across the US, Canada, and the UK, faced a challenge when expanding into customer-curated travel packages: how to introduce the new offering without confusing customers or undermining existing curated packages. With mixed internal opinions about using a single navigation entry, Web Accessibility and UX Lead Avi Agarwal pushed leadership to take a research-driven, user-centric approach.

Avi built prototypes and used UserTesting to iterate quickly, uncovering that a single-point entry confused users and that multiple entry points worked better. Across about 20 tests in six rounds he optimized layouts, labels, and interactions, enabling a successful launch that increased self-curated bookings and cut customer support calls by 82%. The effort cemented a user-centered culture at Costco Travel, expanded the UX team, and made rapid testing a core practice.

Costco Travel

Diya Loney

Product Manager