Back to Work
Case 02

Request-based releases.

Allocation logic Executive turnaround 4,200 members
7.8×
Requests: 17,876, up from a peak of ~2,300
2.8×
Memberships: 1,816, up from a peak of 650
40%
Added by Members directly
72
Destinations across 14 months of travel

Our biggest releases used to be first come, first served. We had run request-based releases before, but nothing at this scale. I owned the move to requests: Members choose the trips they want and rank them, and the system allocates across everyone who entered, using ranking and multi-award logic I defined with the business and engineering.

The build ran three months with more than ten business stakeholders, including the CMO, CTO and President, and directives that kept changing. My job was holding scope and protecting testing time through all of it.

Less than three weeks before the release went out to 4,200 members, the President and CMO raised concerns about what had been built. I prototyped an alternative over a weekend, met the dev team on a day the office was closed to test whether it would work, got the same stakeholders aligned, and had the new approach running in production less than two weeks later.

The release drew 17,876 requests, 7.8 times the ~2,300 of the biggest release before it. 1,816 unique memberships entered, up from a high of 650, for travel across 14 months and 72 destinations. Members added about 40% of the requests themselves and their Account Managers added the rest, all through one request flow.

Figures The request flow, from release home to a ranked list
The full flow Browse, filter, request, rank
The release home page. A guide titled ‘Where to Go, and When’ with a link to the lookbook sits above tabs for Releases, All Destinations and FAQs. Below, an open release, ‘Holiday 2027/2028’, shows its end date, ‘7 of 20 Requests Submitted’, and a View Release button.
Release home Lookbook, open releases, requests submitted
The All Destinations tab: a search field, filters for release window, vacation type, minimum bedrooms and maximum occupancy, a count of 69 destinations and 286 residences, and a table listing region, destination, residences, bedrooms and occupancy.
All destinations Every residence in the release, filterable
Creating a request, step two of four: Edit Dates, Select Destination, Select Residence, Complete. A search field and a Beach filter narrow the list to 22 destinations and 150 residences, shown as photo cards for Paradise Beach Nevis, Rosewood Little Dix Bay and The Abaco Club, each with Select and Explore destination.
Create a request Dates, destination, residence, complete
A release’s details above its Review Request list. The details show the end date, a View FAQ link, ‘5 out of 6 requests entered’ and a prompt to fill out release preferences. In the list, each request shows its rank number, dates, destination and residence count, with View, Edit and Delete links, a label showing who submitted it, and up and down arrows to change its rank.
Rank your requests Order sets priority in allocation
Back to Work