{"id":23905,"date":"2015-02-09T22:13:03","date_gmt":"2015-02-09T22:13:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/turo.com\/blog\/?p=28"},"modified":"2025-03-28T07:44:15","modified_gmt":"2025-03-28T14:44:15","slug":"a-mini-match-made-in-the-city-of-angels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/turo.com\/blog\/community\/a-mini-match-made-in-the-city-of-angels\/","title":{"rendered":"A MINI match made in the City of Angels"},"content":{"rendered":"

A guest post by Turo member\u00a0Liuqing Chen<\/strong><\/p>\n

Liuqing Chen wanted to pop the question to his girlfriend. Three MINI Coopers rented on Turo, a TIME cover story, and an exciting proposal later, he\u2019s a married man. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the story from Liuqing:<\/span><\/p>\n

A romantic idea<\/b><\/h3>\n

On December 15, I came up with the idea of collecting MINI Coopers of different colors to propose to my wife (we got married on Jan 1), since she\u2019s a superfan of MINI Coopers and because it would be cool visually to group these cars together at Griffith Observatory, which is one of her favorite places.<\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, there were a few problems with this plan: How do I find so many MINI Coopers in a short period of time? How do I have her show up at the Griffith Observatory without letting her know that I am going to propose? Her sister Min Z. helped me out with the second problem. She simply told her that there would be a show there on that day, and, of course, she did not tell her that it would be a \u201cshow\u201d for her.<\/span><\/p>\n

But without MINI Coopers, the plan wouldn\u2019t work! So I searched online for \u201cMINI Cooper rentals\u201d. Here were my choices:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Big rental companies, like Budget. I found one big agency that had a convertible red MINI Cooper for rent. I got really excited and thought that it would be an easy way to get my cars. I started filling out the forms, but was then asked to choose a vehicle category. This is not what I wanted! I just wanted my little MINI Cooper. So I called to them to explain my great plan and secure a MINI, but they told me they couldn\u2019t guarantee the type of car and that I could only pick from the available cars when I arrived. Disappointed, I called some other big rental companies. They said the same thing.<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Smaller rental companies. Yes, there were a lot of smaller rental options, but there were four contingencies: it had to be in LA, it must have MINIs for rent, the car had to be available, and it needed to be a special color, like yellow or blue. I made countless calls. Some of them couldn\u2019t provide the specific car type, some didn\u2019t have the car available in LA, some said their business wasn\u2019t set up to accommodate this sort of request. I did, however, successfully rent a red MINI from a luxury rental car agency \u2014 for $180.<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Contact MINI Cooper directly. I didn\u2019t even try it. Although it could have been a good advertisement for them, they would have probably refused since they don\u2019t conventionally rent cars.<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. Turo. <\/span>Matthew D.\u2019s black convertible MINI Cooper<\/span> actually showed up in the Google search results, and I was able to rent it for only $55. He was very nice and helpful. I sent a message explaining my plan, and within 20 minutes, he had approved my request and congratulated me.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \"Mini\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    The matchmaker marketplace<\/b><\/h3>\n

    Then I tried searching for other MINIs on Turo \u2014 and got a long list of MINI Coopers in a variety \u00a0of colors and available exactly when I needed them, which really saved me a lot of time. I didn\u2019t need to make any calls in order to rent the car, and they did a great job on security and safety.<\/span><\/p>\n

    While I was only able to rent one car, I enlisted the help of my friends to rent some more. My friend Henry rented a <\/span>yellow MINI Cooper from Joel S.<\/span> for $50, and another friend, Boyu, rented <\/span>a blue MINI Cooper from Kenny S.<\/span> for $45. The car owners were really willing to help when my friends mentioned my plan. <\/span>Joel even mentioned me in the cover story of TIME magazine<\/span><\/a>! I feel like I am becoming famous!<\/span><\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    With the help of Turo and the local MINI Cooper owners, I rented so many cars and got them to the Observatory on time. All together, it cost me less than $180 (including insurance) to execute my plan perfectly.<\/span>
    The proposal went really well, and most importantly, she said yes.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

    \"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    Thank you, Turo!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Liuging Chen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A guest post by Turo member\u00a0Liuqing Chen Liuqing Chen wanted to pop the question to his girlfriend. Three MINI Coopers rented on Turo, a TIME cover story, and an exciting…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":24499,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[74],"class_list":["post-23905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-member-profiles"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t