Ok, so my car was officially all setup and approved for Getaround today, which is exciting. Go out and rent it, guys! https://www.getaround.com/QuantumConvertible

A couple things I’ve learned so far.

1. Never, ever, ever, leave anything inside your car whatsoever, for any amount of time, ever. Had my car broken into on Monday, after getting it on Thursday, and had some packages stolen from the front seat of my car that I had been getting ready to ship the next day. I guess they assumed whatever was inside the packages must have been nice since they were in my nice convertible Mini Cooper (woo, semi-confirmation I have a nice car!). And they were right – came out to over $300 worth of stuff, including some really nice headphones. Ah well.
2. Getaround comes with a nice optional security feature on their Getaround Connect device which immobilizes the starter if the car isn’t unlocked using the Getaround app. This is necessary when parking in a public area like on the side of the street since you leave the car keys inside the car. This also makes it super convenient to always be able to leave your keys inside the car, and be sure you’ll never lose your keys, and to be able to lock and unlock your car anywhere with just your phone.
3. Getting a car alarm system might be worth it in the city. Even comprehensive insurance wouldn’t be much help with repairing broken windows since they come with at least a $100 deductible, and repairing a window is a $100-200 expense ($195 for me this time around) – plus a full-on comprehensive plan would significantly increase my insurance from under $700/yr to like $1800 a year, so yeah, no thanks just yet.
4. That said, instead of actually getting a car alarm, I just got some car alarm decals off eBay. Hopefully they work just as well for ~1/100th of the cost: http://www.ebay.com/itm/VIPER-ALARM-WINDOW-DECAL-/221972655832
5. Getaround starts cars, even premium vehicles like a convertible Mini Cooper, at really low rates: $8/hr for mine. Frankly, at this rate, I don’t see how it’s possible to make a guaranteed $6000 a year just renting 72 weekend days – even if it were rented every single day for the full day (max rate: $64), that would be $4,608…before Getaround’s 40% commission. After: $2764.80. So yeah, I’m going to try renting with full availability for a month, starting from now till February 15th, and see how much I make in a month and extrapolate that out to a year. If it’s significantly more than $6000, I’ll keep availability on as much as possible. If $6000 or less, I’ll just rent it for the minimum requirement and take the guarantee and reduce the wear and tear on the car. I’m really not sure who calculated this guarantee…but I’m not quite seeing how it makes sense for Getaround at these rates. I raised my personal rate to $9/hr to make it slightly more feasible, as you’re allowed to move the rate 20% from the recommended amount in either direction and still qualify for the guarantee. But we’ll see.
6. Given my calculations above, I suspect this guarantee won’t last forever – if you’d like to jump on board, you may want to do so now. But I’ll update again once I get some rides under my belt and have a better extrapolation of earnings moving forward.