Does anyone do Turo or other peer to peer car share rentals for their sitters?
Hi @Penny1212 and welcome to the forum. I’ve read favorable reports from forum readers about Turo and similar services. My last owner had a good experience with Turo. Take a look at these topics from the past about car rentals/hires.
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I’ve looked at Turo but because I have a Chase Sapphire card that provides primary car rental coverage haven’t used it because thee CSR card doesn’t cover peer rentals and Turo ends up costing more with insurance factored in.
Before THS I was a frequent AirBNB user and have used blablacar.com several times and used Eatwith as well so am a user of peer-peer travel.
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We’ve used Turo a few times, but not to rent for a sitter. We’ve rented from Turo when we travel on sits. We love it, loads cheaper than the big rental companies. Just be sure to look at their reviews. Another good one is Kyte.
As a sitter, we are going on a long sit but don’t need a car for the entire sit, so will use Turo for a few days to go explore. I love that they deliver the car to you!
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We’ve just arrived to Fuerteventura, one of the Canary Islands. Car hire is ridiculously cheap here!
We have hired a newish 4 door saloon - €650 for 31 days including full insurance, unlimited miles and two drivers!
How can they be making any money with those rates?
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Typically, car rental companies make money with the combo of high and low season and other such demand and supply balances. Sometimes, they’re fine with just covering costs during slow periods.
This is high season in the Canaries!
Maybe where you rented they have a glut of cars. Like when I worked in car rentals during college, sometimes we’d have a glut of returns at one location and we needed to move cars so we wouldn’t run out of parking spaces. We also rented the parking spaces to other drivers.
We were amazed by tbe car rental prices on Lanzarote in May last year. So simple and easy to do as well.
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I rented a car through kayak.co.uk in the UK last month. Super cheap ÂŁ170 for 10 days - (& an even smaller one was ÂŁ16 a day) so pretty similar to @Colin in the Canaries. It was a Keddy car so the Europcar cheaper brand - the search engine above or easycar find the best deals (top tip from @Lokstar last year) & have bought an annual excess insurance policy for ÂŁ45 multiple use 
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I have found rental cars and airfare to be very expensive where I’ve had sits. 100 USD a day for the most basic models at my last sit. Rental car and airfare costs are why I’m not looking for sits right now.
Rental car prices have increased dramatically everywhere since covid travel restrictions for some obvious and non-obvious reasons. Even the supposed cheap Spanish and other country rates are still actually much higher than they were, they just started from a much lower point when they increased.
I was put off trying Truro by just reading the reviews for each owner. It looked like half of all reviews on average were negative because the deal was cancelled by the vehicle owner at extremely short notice leaving the traveler having to pay huge rates for regular hire. Thankfully Truro seems to allow a review when an agreement is cancelled so you can see the track record of the owner and avoid them but still decided against risking it.
Kayak has been good for me for rental cars recently. If you book far enough in advance and check back regularly you can sometimes get better deals and cancel the original even getting good last minute-deals.
Also excess insurance can be good (mine covered me when I locked the keys in the car due to stupid auto-locking after 15 seconds).
@Cuttlefish a new great tip- Drivalia.co.uk! Just checked their latest deals and found 10 days from Heathrow starting next week £12 per day! Combined with icarhireinsurance.com Europe excess policy (£45 per year) that’s a super cheap combo.
We also rented from them in November to and from Heathrow- (when flying to India for 10 days!) ÂŁ24 for 24 hours TO the airport and ÂŁ36 for 48 hours on our return! Way cheaper and more convenient than any public transport for 2 people!
No, it is just a thing here, car rental is always great value in the Canaries, it’s always been a mystery to me how they make any money!
We used to rent a tiny, old, decrepid Fiat Panda for a family of 5 in Lanzarote as kids, and then head out (unofficially) across the black sands to the most remote beach possible….
Must have been cheap even then circa 1989 for my Dad to part with his cash @Colin - have great memories of the dune bouncing! 
#randomsidestory
Sounds good.
I was just sitting in Seattle and rental cars were cheaper than I’ve seen in ages. My rental was $25 USD a day and I didn’t shop around or book way ahead. The taxes and fees are high, but that’s par for the course with U.S. rentals nowadays. Had fun driving around and taking my sit dog all over.
FYI, in case useful for other sitters: If you have a U.S. insurance policy or credit card, those might cover rental cars as well. And some policies have roadside assistance even for rentals. It’s worth checking ahead of booking.
Separately, if you have an AAA (American Automobile Association) membership, it covers any car you’re in at least in the U.S. when it comes to roadside assistance. So that would include rentals and cars you’re a passenger in.
For people who will be on the road a lot in the U.S. (even foreign tourists) or might go to places that are out of the way, AAA membership might be worthwhile for roadside assistance. Over the years, AAA has replaced batteries for me onsite, unlocked my car and towed us off a bridge in NYC when our car suddenly died. The AAA app offers tracking, so you can see how far away your roadside assistance driver is and how long till they arrive.