How to Switch Shuttle Booking Software Without Losing a Single Reservation

Days 1–2: export everything

Pull all of it as CSV while your account is fully active. Vendors rarely block exports, but nobody restores access after cancellation.

• Future bookings — the critical set, exported twice on different days
• 24 months of historical bookings for reporting continuity
• Customer list with email, phone and marketing consent status
• Routes, stops, pickup points and terminal instructions
• Rate rules, zones, surcharges and discount codes
• Vehicles, capacities, drivers and document expiry dates
• Any saved payment tokens — ask your processor, not the software vendor

Days 3–6: build and rehearse

Load routes, rates and vehicles into the new platform, then rehearse with real data rather than samples. Book a seat as a customer, watch the manifest build, run the driver app through a boarding, cancel a booking and check the refund path. Have the person who answers the phone do this, not the owner.

Days 7–9: parallel running and cutover sequence

Order matters. This sequence is what prevents lost reservations.

• 1. Point the website booking button at the new platform; stop new bookings on the old
• 2. Keep the old system live and read-only for legacy reservations
• 3. Re-enter any future bookings that fall outside the export window, then reconcile counts line by line
• 4. Send passengers with existing bookings a short 'nothing changes for you' note
• 5. Move payment processing only after one clean week of bookings

Day 10: close out, and the rollback rule

Cancel the old subscription only after the last legacy booking has travelled and you have downloaded a final export. Define the rollback trigger in advance — for example, more than two booking failures in a day, or any double-sold run — and agree who makes the call. Migrations go wrong when nobody decided beforehand what 'wrong' means.

The two mistakes that actually lose bookings

First, cancelling the old platform before future reservations have travelled — the export is a spreadsheet, not a working booking with a passenger who has your old confirmation email. Second, changing payment processing on cutover day, which turns any card failure into an ambiguous incident nobody can diagnose.

Frequently asked questions

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