Switching Travel Proposal Software: A Migration Checklist That Protects Your Clients and Your Time

Updated October 2026.

The principle: don't move live work

The danger in switching is not the new tool. It is moving trips that are halfway through, with deposits paid and clients holding links. Avoid that entirely. New work goes to the new tool, old work finishes in the old one. After a few weeks the old tool is nearly empty and can be retired.

Before you start: decide why

Write down the reason for switching and what you expect to improve. Without it, you will not know whether the move worked. Typical reasons are cost, proposals that look dated, no payment or acceptance step, or missing features. Choose three things the new tool must do better.

Checklist

Week 0: prepare

• Check your export options in the old tool: contacts, trips, notes, documents. Do a test export now, before you decide to leave.
• List what is live: proposals out with clients, trips with payments pending, travel dates in the next three months.
• List reusable content: hotel descriptions, day plans, activity write-ups, terms, email templates.
• Check your contract. Note the renewal date and cancellation terms so you don't pay for a year you didn't intend to.

Week 1: set up the new tool

• Add your logo, colours and agency details.
• Enter your terms and cancellation policy. See how to write a cancellation policy.
• Connect your payment provider and set your deposit policy.
• Rebuild your five most-used hotels, activities and day plans as reusable items.
• Build one test proposal and open it on your phone.

Week 2: start using it

• Handle every new enquiry in the new tool.
• Keep finishing live trips in the old one.
• Import your client list, if the new tool supports it, so repeat clients are there.
• Tell clients nothing, unless something changes for them. A new proposal link needs no explanation.

Weeks 3 to 6: run both, shrinking the old one

• Review the old tool weekly for anything still live.
• Move repeat clients' key details across as they come back.
• Note anything you miss in the new tool and tell the vendor.

Retiring the old tool

• Confirm no open proposal links, pending payments or upcoming trips depend on it.
• Take a final full export and store it safely, with a date.
• Download documents clients might still need.
• Then cancel.

What to rebuild and what to skip

Move it	Leave in the export
Repeat clients and their preferences	One-off leads from years ago
Reusable hotel, activity and day content	Old, outdated supplier details
Terms, templates and signatures	Completed trips with no further use
Trips travelling in the next few months	Anything you only need for records

The aim is not to copy everything. A migration is a good moment to leave the clutter behind.

Protect your data

• Store exports somewhere secure, since they hold client personal data.
• Check the rules on how long you must keep client and financial records in your country.
• When you finally leave, ask the old vendor to delete your data, and ask for confirmation.

Things that go wrong

• Cancelling the old tool before a client's open link expires.
• Assuming the export includes documents and notes when it only has contacts.
• Moving everything, and importing the mess too.
• Switching in the busiest month.
• Not telling your team the date from which new work goes to the new tool.

Choosing a tool you can leave

When you pick any tool, check how you would leave it: what can be exported, in what format. A vendor confident in its product makes leaving easy. If you are comparing options, see what to pay for and how to compare proposal software. Story of a Trip is built around reusable content and clear records, so building up your library once makes later work faster.

A worked example (illustrative)

An agent with 12 live trips and about 300 past clients decides to switch on a Monday in early November. They begin by exporting contacts and notes from the old tool and saving the file. They then spend Monday and Tuesday setting up the new tool: logo, terms, payment provider and deposit policy, plus eight reusable hotels and five day plans they use all the time.

From Wednesday every new enquiry gets a proposal in the new tool. The 12 live trips stay in the old tool, since several have deposits paid and clients holding links. The agent makes a short list of the repeat clients likely to rebook within a year and imports them into the new tool. By mid-December, nine of the 12 live trips have finished, and only three remain. The agent keeps the old subscription until the last one has returned, takes a final export, and cancels in January.

At no point did a client see a change, and at no point was the agent without a working system.

Signs it is time to switch

• Your proposals look older than your competitors', and clients notice.
• You re-enter the same information in several places.
• Payments and acceptances happen outside the tool, so the record is incomplete.
• Your tool cannot do something you need and the vendor has no plans to add it.
• The price has risen faster than the value.

If two or more are true, the effort of moving is likely smaller than the cost of staying.

Talking to your team

If others work with you, explain why you are switching, what will change for them and when. Give everyone a start date for the new tool and a simple rule: new enquiries in the new one, existing trips in the old one. Run a short walk-through, and ask each person to build one proposal while you are available to help. Write down the questions they ask, because those become your internal guide.

Expect a dip in speed for the first week or two. Plan the switch for a quieter period if you can, and don't judge the new tool on its first day. Judge it after a month of real use against the three things you wanted it to improve.

Key takeaways

• Never move live trips. New work goes to the new tool; old work finishes in the old.
• Test your export before you decide to leave.
• Rebuild your most-used reusable content first.
• Cancel the old tool only when nothing live depends on it.
• Keep a dated, secure final export.