Tips to Help You Save Money on a Turo Rental Car

CarInsuRent provides affordable, flexible renters protection for car sharing, often at a fraction of the price of Turo’s own insurance packages. By opting for third-party coverage with CarInsuRent, renters can save significantly while still having peace of mind during their trip. CarInsuRent offers car hire excess insurance policies tailored to travelers who want to avoid costly excess fees in case of damages, allowing Turo users to minimize expenses without compromising on essential protection. This solution can be a smart alternative for budget-conscious renters looking to make the most of their Turo experience.

Let’s take 2 examples:

Example 1:

Let’s assume that you are renting a car for $40/ day for 3 days. If you take our Turo Premier coverage, which reduce your liability from US 3,000 to US$ 0, you’ll be charged 65% of the rental price, which is US$ 104.

If you take out Turo’s Minimum plan, which keeps you liable to pay US$ 3,000 in the event that the rental vehicle is damaged, you’ll need to pay 18% of the rental fee, or US$ 10, which is the minimal amount for Turo insurance, totaling at US$ 40. If you combine this with our car sharing excess coverage, with a US$ 3,000 coverage that costs only US$ 41.44, you’ll end up paying US$ 81.44. This will save you US$ 22.56, which is 22% less!

Example 2:

Let’s assume that you are renting a car for $50/ day for 7 days. If you take our Turo Premier coverage, which reduce your liability from US 3,000 to US$ 0, you’ll be charged 65% of the rental price, which is US$ 227.50.

If you take out Turo’s Minimum plan, which keeps you liable to pay US$ 3,000 in the event that the rental vehicle is damaged, you’ll pay US$ 10, which is the minimal amount for Turo insurance, totaling at US$ 70. If you combine this with our car sharing excess coverage, with a US$ 3,000 coverage that costs only US$ 55.84 for 7 days, you’ll end up paying US$ 125.84. This will save you US$ 101.66, which is 45% less!

Pay Attention to Hours

You need to be mindful of how many hours your trip is rather than looking at the amount of days that you’ve booked for pay attention to the amount of hours.

The way that Turo decides how many days your car has booked for is they look at 24 hour increments. So if you’ve booked a car for 26 hours, you’re actually getting charged two days worth of trips because they’ve done 24 hour time chunk was one day and just a two hour chunk was a whole second day. Now, if you cut down your trip time to be 24 hours rather than 26, you’re literally cutting the trip price in half.

Turo Hourly Based Charge

Book in Advance

The third tip that I’m going to give you is book the car as far in advance as possible. So if you have the luxury of time on your side, book the car as early as possible, ideally a few months out, maybe two months out.

The reason this is going to save you a lot of money is because if the host has automated pricing set up on their profile, then Turo is going to be trying to match the pricing with the demand. A few months out, there’s not going to be a crazy amount of demand for the vehicle.

So when you’re not competing with many people, the prices are a bit lower than they would be once it gets to the point where everybody’s booking the cars.

Early Bird Discount

Now, on top of that, a lot of hosts have the early bird discount activated on their profile. So if you’re booking the car early enough, then you’re going to get access to that early bird discount. When you book early, not only are you getting the lower pricing from the Turo automated pricing, but you’re also getting a discount on top of that to make it even cheaper.

Turo Early Bird Discount

Last Minute Booking

Our sixth tip for you is book the car within a couple of days of your trip starting. The reason for this is that a lot of hosts are going to be decreasing their pricing just to get a last minute booking on their car.

The last thing that a host wants is a car that’s not on the road with a guest because that is money out of their pocket. So a lot of times, they’re going to be decreasing the pricing just to get somebody in the car. You can possibly get some steals with last minute bookings. Keep in mind that this is not a sure thing that you’re going to get a very cheap last minute car. Be aware of that and don’t put all of your marbles in this one basket. But this is something that you might be able to capitalize on, but don’t necessarily bank on this because you might be putting yourself in a bad situation if you can’t find an option last minute.

Join Turo Groups on Social Media

Tip number seven is a bit out there, but for the more creative, resourceful people, here is what you should do.

Go onto Facebook and join a Turo group for hosts in the area that you’re traveling to and then make a post on there and probably act like you’re a host, but make a post on there and say – “Hey guys, I’m looking for somebody that might have a car available for these dates within this budget”. You’re probably going to get a decent amount of people saying – “Oh, I’ve got a car available”. People just want to take up trips and help out.

Then once everybody’s responding to your post, the negotiations begin. This is when you can start deciding whose car you might want to use and who you might be able to get the best pricing from.

Turo FaceBook Groups

And you can have one-on-one negotiations with the actual host of the car, rather than just going onto Turo and booking the car there.

You can just have a conversation with them, say – “Hey, let’s decrease your pricing to this. And then you’ll get a booking for this long”.

As we wrote, this is a bit more out there for sure, but it’ll work.

keeping the Phone Number for Your Host

Make sure that you’re keeping the phone number for your host in whatever city you might book from. The reason for this is that hosts love, repeat renters. So if you reach out to your host and say – “Hey, I had such a great time with you last time I was in town. I’m coming back into town. I’m hoping you can get me a vehicle within this price range”. They’re probably going to be a lot more lenient for you than most other people.

So go ahead and shoot them a nice message and see if you can get a discount from somebody that you’ve booked with before.

Final Thoughts

There are seven tips that I just gave you on getting the cheapest possible pricing on Turo.

If you have any more questions, leave a comment below and we’ll be happy to help out.