Turo Car Sharing

I received an email from Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards, promoting their relationship with Turo.
Turo is a Car Sharing marketplace - think AirBNB, but instead of staying in someone’s residence, you are renting a person’s personal vehicle.
After researching Turo, I decided to move forward with booking a car through their website (for my Disney trip next April).
Utilizing the Southwest Airlines link, I booked a 2016 Toyota Corolla for 11 days, for $295 (after a $25 Off promo code as First Time User), Because I used the Southwest Airlines link, I’ll also get 2,000 SW miles. I can cancel my reservation up to 24 hours in advance.
The only downside I see is that payment is due at the time that the reservation is accepted by the owner (if I cancel, my payment is refunded to my credit card).
I can imagine that some people might find it weird to ‘rent’ someone else’s car. However, it appears that Turo vets it’s owners pretty well, and that those owners reputations are on the line (much like AirBNB owners have ratings, so do Turo owners). Looking through various car reviews, you can see numerous comments about how clean the cars are, how easy the owner was to work with, how quickly they responded to requests, etc. Once I read the reviews, I realized that borrowing someone’s car isn’t any stranger than staying in a hotel room and sleeping in a bed that HUNDREDS of other people have slept in.

I made sure to filter my car selection to include free delivery - the owner will bring the car to me at MCO, and I can return it there too. I saw that some cars do not have delivery available, or, that there’s an additional charge. There’s also options to add child seats, whether to return the car with full tank, etc.

The best car rental deal that I had received so far (and I’ve been looking often) had been @ $450 for 11 days, so I’m pretty happy about this $295 score. I’ll continue to look though, and I’ll let you know how my experience works out.

Does anyone have any experience with Turo?

Yes! But our experience was in Phoenix for 30 days this past winter, over the semester break Dec/Jan. We had never done it before, but it worked out very well! It was pretty much an individual who had a fleet of cars, and had his own small car rental agency. We rented a 3 or 4 year old Altima that was clean and in great condition. An individual from his group met us at the airport to personally hand off the car to us - even late at night! When we were ready to fly back home, we contacted them and worked out the details, timing, where to leave it, etc. It was half the price of any other car rental for that long of time.

Bottom line: It worked great for us, albeit in Phoenix not Orlando. But we’d be willing to use Turo again, and in other cities.

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I think you are looking at rentals too early and I am worried that you could do better. My current full size 8 day Alamo rental is $224. It started around $400. I also have a premium held at $271 (I love those premium cars). I do rent through Costco and have the option of paying a couple of extra dollars a day for points but usually I am too cheap.

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My first thought is around insurances. Does the contract speak in any way to this?

I also wonder about a private individual engaging in appropriate maintenance of the vehicle. How are you informed on this?

I’ve still never done an air b n b or a vrbo but while I’m hesitant, I’m a little more open to that after having several years of other people doing it. I don’t want to be a guinea pig.

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Sounds very interesting. I would definitely do it however that seems a little expensive for Orlando. But we always drive anyway so I’m just going off what I’ve read from others.

Thanks for sharing your experience @mkmuzzy !

I agree, and I’ll keep checking rates. I like setting baselines early for trips, and then improving upon them. I was really curious about Turo and how it worked, so I set up an early reservation just so I could go through the process to see if it’s a good fit, knowing I could always cancel.
I’ve checked Costco too, and I just haven’t seen a good rate yet. I’m optimistic they’ll drop closer to my travel dates.

Similar to rental car agencies; there is coverage offered, or you can decline. Liberty Mutual is the underwriter.

Great question. I relied upon the reviews that previous borrowers left to get a sense if the car was in good shape, clean, easy to work with the owner, etc. This is a revenue stream for the owner, so it makes sense that they’re motivated to keep the car in good shape.

This is important. I guess my big holdback here is that I can walk away from a house that doesn’t meet standards, but if a car I’m driving/riding in hasn’t been properly maintained, that’s a real risk to my safety.

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Very valid concern. All things being equal, if I score a rental car rate near a Turo rate, I’m going with the rental car. Even if the rental car has an issue, I have confidence they’ll send someone out / get me another car, etc, because they have the resources to do that. What’s the Turo owner going to do for me while I’m on the side of I-4? Great reviews may not mean much if they’re at work and “their brother Joey” can’t get over to look at it.

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This is really interesting, I’d never heard of them before this post. I look forward to your trip report if you do end up using the service. Thank you for exploring and sharing your experience so far!

(as an aside, I’ve often–but not always–find the best car rental rates using autoslash, which a lot of people seem to not know about. Might want to put it on your radar as another place to check!)

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Thanks for the suggestion!
I haven’t figured out how to master what Autoslash sends me yet. When I signed up for Autoslash notifications, the cheaper rates were all coming from Fox, Sixt, etc. I wasn’t interested in those since they didn’t have counters/cars right at MCO (and they receive so many negative reviews).
Is there a way through Autoslash to only get notifications from select companies, or at least the ones that are only onsite at MCO? I noticed that Priceline has that filtering capability but didn’t see it in Autoslash.

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I don’t recall seeing that as a feature, but then I often rent from Fox in Las Vegas so I don’t mind renting from them although I have also seen a lot of bad reports online about them, too. I have gotten some counter service ones (once in SLC and the other…I can’t remember lol) through autoslash, so they do show up. I think both times it was Alamo.