As I sit here and talk with my wife and mother-in-law about travel and vacations, the first concern is how can we travel on a budget. Whether it be camping in tents, booking a cheap Airbnb, or trying to find the lowest price airfare, traveling and vacationing on a budget is hard. Just a couple of years ago, our vacation travel group spend on average $1500+ on a basic rental car for a 5-day trip. However, this is before we knew about Turo.
Turo is a great way to cut costs when traveling. In comparison to traditional rental car companies, you can expect to save about $10-30 per day by using Turo. By using Turo car sharing, you can book ahead of time to get an early bird discount, use the car for return discounts, and also filter your searches by price.
In fact, if you go to Hertz, National, Alamo, or any other traditional car rental company, Turo will most likely have cheaper options available to help you and your travel group cut down on travel costs. Turo can help you travel on a budget.
Turo Can Save You Money While Traveling On A Budget
More than 25+ million cars were rented in 2021 and more are predicted to be rented every year. Most of them come from rental car companies. As an experiment, I selected the same date, time, and location and went to Hertz’s website, and compared it to Turo (see below). Turo’s least expensive car is more than $20 less than the cheapest option on Hertz.
Now that we know that Turo is less expensive, what other tips are there? Well, as an all-star host on Turo I can give you some secret tips.
Early Bird Discounts
As an all-star host on Turo, I can see behind the scenes of pricing and discounts. The truth is, there are several discounts that hosts can extend to guests. Early bird discount is one of them.
If you book a Turo rental at least 7 days in advance before your start time, you can earn up to 10% off of your entire trip. For example, I have mine set to give guests a 10% discount if they book at least 7 days in advance. Turo recommends this to entice guests to book ahead.
On the contrary, if you don’t book your vehicle early, you can actually be charged a last-minute boost fee. Bookings that are same-day are eligible for price boosts from the host. According to Turo, guests that search for same-day bookings are 2x more likely to book in comparison to those booking more than one day ahead. To take advantage of this, Turo hosts can choose to price their same-day bookings by up to 10%.
It’s important to note that both the early bird discount and last-minute boost pricing are both in beta mode as of writing and I’ll keep this updated if Turo makes any further changes.
A secret to know is that you can receive other discounts even if you get the early bird discount.
Duration Discounts
Duration discounts are an easy way to get even bigger savings on your Turo rental. Hosts are given the option to provide BIG discounts for longer renting guests. Longer rental periods mean less work for the host such as car washes, inspection, and checking in and out, so Turo encourages guests to book longer trips.
The max discounts that hosts can offer can be quite influential on a guest’s rental duration. The max discounts for each rental period, according to Turo, are:
| Trip Duration | Max Discounts |
| 3+ Days | 25% |
| 7+ Days | 40% |
| 30+ | 60% |
If you and/or your travel group are considering how many days to book your travel, it may be worth spending an extra day or two to get a much bigger discount on your Turo trip.
Using the Same Turo Host And Car
Another tactic that hosts can offer discounts to guests is by offering a returning discount. At the end of a trip, hosts can rent guests and vice versa. Hosts can then offer up to a 15% discount to returning guests that book again with them!
If you choose a car from a host that’s been around for a while, there are good chances that that car will be available the next year. I personally offer this discount to most of my guests by default as long as they are easy to work with.
If you want to know what to look for when renting a car on Turo, click here.
Message The Host
If you can’t seem to get any discounts when booking your Turo car, feel free to reach out to the host when you book the car to see if they can offer one of these discounts. Since most guests don’t know what specific discounts can be given, use this to your advantage.
Although Turo doesn’t currently let you message any hosts without booking a trip, Turo will give you a full refund as long as you follow these guidelines. Personally, I have had guests message me about future trips and make modifications right after booking. Guests that book far out gives me plenty of time to prepare my schedule.
Final Thoughts From An All-Star Hosts Perspective
Renting on Turo is a great way to save while traveling. Spending $2,000 for a week-long rental car is absurd, especially knowing now that there are other options.
Hosts won’t openly tell you about discounts you may or may not be getting, but if you message them about it or test out different dates and times, you may find some unexpected discounts.
Utilizing early bird discounts, duration discounts, and using the same rental host and car are ways that you can easily save hundreds of dollars for your vacation or travel. Whether you are traveling to Hawaii, New York, or somewhere else in the world, using Turo can help you travel on a budget.
Now, back reminiscing…
If you want to explore other care rental companies, click here.
