A Now Resolved Turo Trip Issue Influenced Me to Raise the CRV Price Again

In July, a guest booked the CRV for a one-week trip that started on 7 August 2021. On the morning of 7 August, my guest messaged me to tell me he’d arrived at the Huntsville International Airport without his driver’s license.

I expressed to him that I’m 100% by the book and would not allow him to pick up the CRV without a valid driver’s license. I also commented that I “can’t believe they let you fly without a driver’s license.” With that question, I was clearly probing because it’s super suspicious that any adult travels ANYWHERE outside of their home without their ID. My host said he boarded the plane with his passport. But still, who doesn’t have their driver’s license in the same container as their money??

Let’s move on. My Turo guest later told me he would try to have his driver’s license overnight shipped to him via UPS. I asked if he wanted to keep the CRV reservation. He said he wanted to keep the reservation because he’d still need the car. I said “Cool” and asked him to let me know when his license comes in.

The story is getting long, so I’ll wrap it up with the high points:

• Guest agreed to keep the reservation as is, – instead of cancelling or changing the pickup date – so the Trip started as scheduled on Saturday.
• Sunday, he messages that UPS will deliver driver’s license on Monday during the day and asks when can he come get the car. I say anytime after 8am.
• Monday morning, I get a notification that the Turo Trip was cancelled by guest. SURPRISE — that wasn’t the plan! Turo labels the cancellation the kind of cancellation that pays me only one day’s rent.
• I contact Turo to tell Turo that this cancellation counts as a No Show and that I should be paid for 2 of the 7 days my CRV was booked for. My argument is valid: the guest cancelled the trip on Day 3 of the started Trip — yes, even though he hadn’t yet picked up the car.
• 3 Turo Customer Support Reps defend the decision to compensation me for only 1 day in accordance with the cancellation policy.
• 1 final Turo Rep reads my explanation in full and references the Messages between me and guest, then says I’m right: this cancellation is classified as a No Show.
• The awesome Rep issues me a second payment for a total of the cost of two days.

The whole thing added more stress than I wanted to have for this side business in general. This incident coupled with two August Trip cancellations that were inspired me to decide that I’m raising the CRV’s price to overcompensate myself for issues I don’t have the patience to deal with.

I raised the daily price of the CRV from $47 per day to $50 per day. Also, I like easy math. 50 is a nice round number. I know I’ll earn $40 per day – because of the 20% fee Turo collects.