Building it
MGM’s guest checkout lived in an older app, and we needed a refreshed experience for browsers and lobby tablets. I started the new app in July 2024.
I built the reservation lookup first. Guests could find their stay using their details or a confirmation number. When a lookup returned several reservations, I directed them to the confirmation-number form so they could identify the right one.
Other engineers built the stay summary, card verification, review and confirmation screens. I reviewed their changes and helped connect the pieces into a working checkout experience. We had the full flow built in about four months.
Leading the build
With several engineers working on separate screens, we had to keep the app consistent as those screens came together. They needed to share reservation details, handle session timeouts the same way, and give guests a way forward when something failed.
I used reviews to work through those decisions. We consolidated duplicated state and shared timeout handling, and kept the architecture aligned with web check-in. That gave the team familiar patterns to build on as the app grew.
My involvement continued after the initial build: reviewing features and upgrades, working through bugs, and helping keep releases moving.
Seeing what happened in production
Later, I found a gap in our session recordings. We could watch a guest use checkout, but the app’s API requests were missing. If a reservation lookup or checkout request failed, the recording didn’t show us that part of the story.
The API client was using a separate request function that bypassed the one LogRocket recorded. I changed the clients to use the browser’s instrumented function, then checked production recordings after the release to confirm the requests were appearing.
That made failed lookups and checkout requests visible alongside what the guest saw on screen. We could investigate the request itself as well as the page behavior.
The app now supports 21 property brands. In the recorded 2026 data, roughly 70,000 checkout sessions a month reach the thank-you screen.