Capital One is launching a partnership with carsharing platform Turo, and opening up use of its travel portal to more cardmembers.
New Turo Offer
You can rent someone’s car on Turo, as an alternative to renting from a company like Hertz or Avis. It’s not always as seamless a pickup at airports, but you’re renting a specific vehicle rather than a broad category. You may not be spinning the roulette wheel, and of course car rental companies don’t always have cars when you arrive so Turo may not be less convenient after all. Update: Turo ofer ends May 16, 2023.
Sometimes you’ll get a much better deal renting from a private party, and you can rent much nicer cars too.
When renting with Turo (turo.com or their app) using a Capital One card,
- Venture X cardholders 10X miles
- Venture cardholders earn 5X miles
The offer runs through May 16, 2023. As a merchant-funded offer whether or not it gets renewed depends on how well it does for Turo and whether it’s worth their continuing to spend on marketing to Capital One customers.
It’s interesting that Capital One has partnerships with Hertz and with Turo, since increasingly they’re competitors. I value Capital One miles at 1.6 cents apiece, so earning 10 per dollar amounts to a 16% rebate which isn’t bad at all.
Expanded Access To Capital One Travel
Credit card companies have their own travel portals, but those are generally outsourced to the same companies that do it badly elsewhere on the internet. Capital One, though, made a $170 million investment in Hopper, the online booking service which uses machine learning to guide customers on when it’s the best time to buy a plane ticket. And they partnered with Hopper to roll out their new online travel tool which layers Hopper’s prediction analytics with guarantees for the traveler.
Capital One offers offers the most guarantees of any places customers might book online – while letting them use their points to pay for travel if they wish. And when you book paid travel they’re able to offer better rewards by rebating some amount of commission in the form of points.
They launched his slowly, focusing on premium consumer travel cards first. But now all Capital One rewards cardholders can use it. That includes the Savor, Quicksilver, Spark Cash, and Student products which earn 5% cash back on hotels and rental cars booked there using eligible cards. They can also redeem their cash rewards for travel through the portal.
But you also earn 10x on Hertz (or other car rental companies) when you book through the Capital One portal so it’s not necessarily better (of course those portals don’t always give the best value).
… and the portals don’t always have a wide range of available locations. Tried using the CapitalOne Travel Portal for a car rental at London Heathrow and in Johannesburg. Not exactly remote, unknown locations. But nothing. Not that there was zero availability. Just not possible to rent a vehicle in either place.
Obviously I only rent vehicles with credit cards that offer strong coverages such as Chase Sapphire Preferred. What is the state of coverage with Turo? Do any cards offer it, is it a costly add-on, or what do people normally do?
Progressive insurance will cover a Turo rental I do know that much as I called them before doing a rental with Turo. And there is also options at checkout for insurance. I used Turo one weekend in Orlando before the wuhan flu thingy, just needed to test drive a ZR1 for a few days before buying to make sure it would be stable worthy.
CSR car insurance does not cover Turo since you are not renting from a car rental company. Turo offers its own insurance and you should likely consider that.
Cincinnati Insurance does not cover Turo. Check with your insurer before using Turo or pay on the Turo site. YMMV
I have an upcoming Tuto rental. My personal car insurance carrier is State Farm. My agent assured me I am covered with a Turo rental, but not for loss of use charges.
Don’t know about Progressive. But I used Turo one weekend in Orlando before the Fort Detrick leaked the virus thingy, just needed to test drive a SB1 for a few days before buying to make sure it would be stable worthy.
I don’t even see turo as a “Car Rental” option to choose in Capital One portal. Tried doing a dummy booking at the Union Station in DC. Under Car Rental, Hertz, Dollar and Thrifty showed up. Where are you folks finding turo as an option?