Formerly known as RBC Rewards, the RBC loyalty program has been renamed Avion Rewards since August 2022.
You can earn Avion Rewards points on a number of RBC credit cards linked to this loyalty program.
Note that there are 2 types of RBC Avion Rewards credit cards:
The most popular Avion Elite card is the RBC Avion Visa Infinite Card :
RBC Avion Elite cards are:
Other RBC Avion Select cards include:
There are three main uses for Avion Rewards points:
Other uses are not optimal.
There are two ways to use Avion Rewards points for travel purchases:
This is where you’ll get the most out of your Avion Rewards points.
RBC offers a fixed reward chart divided into six levels depending on the type of flight :
What is most interesting, is when the fare of the flight you want to book is close to the maximum amount (excluding taxes and surcharge ).
For example, here’s an airline ticket I booked to redeem 70,000 RBC points that I had earned.
This is a flight from Montreal to Las Vegas for a weekend. The fare is 35,000 Avion Rewards points (“Discover North America” level in the chart above) and $164.85 in taxes.
Flights were direct, operated by Air Canada Rouge (but sold by United).
When looking at the details of the fare on ITA Matrix (to get the ticket price + taxes applied), we see that the ticket price is $370 + $345 = $715 (below the maximum allowed by RBC of $750 for 35,000 point tickets):
The taxes are within a few cents of those charged by RBC (approximately $165).
Here, 35,000 RBC points saved me $715.40. This values my use at 2 cents / RBC point (you can hardly get more!).
$880.25 (public ticket price) – $164.85 (taxes paid) = $715.40.
RBC points can also be used through the flexible reward chart.
For Avion Elite cards, 100 points = $1.
For Avion Select cards, 172 points = $1.
Just use this when you:
It’s not the most expensive way to use your Avion Rewards points, but it’s the easiest way to buy a trip.
One of the highlights of the Avion Rewards Travel program is the ability to convert Avion Rewards points to other partner programs such as American Express or Marriott Bonvoy.
Here are the transfer partners and the normal exchange rate.
From time to time, Avion Rewards runs point conversion promotions such as +30% to British Airways Executive Club. So keep an eye out for these promotions to convert your points at the best possible rate!
If purchasing travel with points is not for you… there is another way to use your Avion Rewards points: by purchasing gift cards.
We generally don’t recommend this method for points as valuable as American Express Membership Rewards points, but Avion Rewards has regular promotions for gift cards!
The most interesting one lately was found in the milesopedia facebook group by Maxime about hotels.com gift cards.
And indeed, it was a good plan: with 18,750 points you could get a $250 hotels.com gift card.
As mentioned above, in addition to these 3 options for redeeming RBC points, there are other ways… but they are not advantageous: purchasing products on the online store, redeeming points for a statement credit, etc.
With this offer for the RBC Avion Visa Infinite Card, you can earn 35,000 Avion points upon approval and 20,000 bonus points when you spend $5,000 within 6 months of approval.
You can use your Avion Rewards points for travel or redeem them with other loyalty programs such as :
The current welcome offer, for example, gives you the equivalent of 55,000 British Airways Avios or 550 WestJet Dollars.
With the RBC Avion Visa Infinite Card, you earn 1 point per dollar and 1.25 points for travel purchases.
What’s more, you’ll benefit from a wide range of insurances: trip cancellation and interruption insurance, out-of-province or out-of-country emergency medical care insurance, collision and damage insurance for rental vehicles, and mobile device insurance.