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Formerly known as RBC Rewards, RBC’s loyalty program has been called Avion Rewards since August 2022.
You can earn Avion Rewards points with several RBC credit cards linked to this loyalty program.
Please note that there are 2 types of RBC Avion Rewards credit cards:
The most well-known Avion Elite card is the RBC Avion Visa Infinite Card:
RBC Avion Elite cards are:
Find out more about the welcome offers on RBC Avion cards.
The other RBC Avion Select cards are:
There are three main uses for Avion Rewards points:
Other uses are not optimal.
It is possible to use Avion Rewards points to purchase travel in two ways:
This is where you will get the most value from your Avion Rewards points.
RBC offers a fixed reward chart divided into 6 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 between Montreal and Las Vegas for a weekend. The fare is 35,000 Avion Rewards points (“Discover North America” Level from the table above) plus $164.85 in taxes.
Flights were direct, operated by Air Canada Rouge (but sold by United).
When we look at the fare details 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:
This is not the most rewarding option for using your Avion Rewards points, but it is the simplest for purchasing travel.
One of the strengths of the Avion Rewards – Travel program is that it allows you to convert your Avion Rewards points to other partner programs just like American Express or Marriott Bonvoy.
Here are the transfer partners and the normal conversion rate.
From time to time, Avion Rewards organizes point conversion promotions such as +30% to British Airways Executive Club, for example. 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 advise against this method for points as valuable as American Express Membership Rewards points, but with Avion Rewards, there are regular promotions targeting gift cards!
The most interesting one recently was discovered in the milesopedia facebook group by Maxime regarding hotels.com gift cards.
And indeed, it was a good deal: with 18,750 points you could get a $250 hotels.com gift card.
As mentioned above, beyond these 3 RBC point redemption options, there are other ways, but they are not advantageous: purchasing products from the online store, credit card reimbursement with points…
With this offer for the RBC Avion Visa Infinite Card, you can earn up to 55,000 Avion points as a welcome bonus. Receive 35,000 welcome points upon approval and earn an additional 20,000 points when you spend $5,000 on the card within the first six months of approval.
You can use your Avion points for travel or convert them to other loyalty programs such as:
The current welcome offer lets you earn the equivalent of up to 55,000 British Airways Avios or 55,000 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.
With this exceptional offer for the RBC Avion Visa Infinite Privilege Card, you can earn up to 70,000 Avion points:
You can use your Avion Rewards points for travel or convert them to other loyalty programs such as:
The current welcome offer, for example, gives you the equivalent of 70,000 British Airways Aviosor 700 WestJet Dollars.
With the RBC Avion Visa Infinite Privilege Card, you earn 1.25 points per dollar.
Finally, you get six free airport passes for lounge worldwide, and fast track through security checkpoints at selected Canadian airports.
Savings are this way (if you don’t see the signup form, click here):
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