Review: RBC Avion Visa Infinite Card

To the point RBC offers a series of "travel" cards as part of the RBC Rewards program. Introducing the RBC Avion Visa Infinite Card.

Welcome offer Savings at Petro-Canada

Earning RBC Rewards points with the card 1.25 RBC Rewards points / dollar for travel purchases 1 RBC Rewards point per dollar everywhere else

Using RBC Rewards points Paying for Travel with RBC Rewards points Converting RBC Rewards points to other programs Buying gift cards with RBC Rewards points

Card Insurance Conclusion

Welcome offer

With this great offer for the RBC Avion Visa Infinite Card, you can earn up to 55,000 Avion Rewards points:

35,000 points on approval (no minimum spend)
20,000 additional points when you spend $5,000 in your first 6 months

It’s a value of up to $1,100.

You can use your Avion Rewards points for travel or redeem them with other loyalty programs such as :

American Airlines AAdvantage
British Airways Executive Club (and Qatar Airways Privilege Club)
Cathay Pacific Asia Miles
WestJet Rewards

For example, with the current welcome offer, you can get the equivalent of 55,000 British Airways Avios Points or 550 WestJet Dollars.

With the RBC Avion Visa Infinite Card, you earn 1 point per dollar and 1.25 points for travel purchases.

And you’ll benefit from a wide range of insurance coverage: Trip Cancellation and Interruption Insurance, Out-of-Province/Country Emergency Medical Insurance, Rental Vehicle Collision/Loss Damage Insurance, Mobile Device Insurance.

Savings at Petro-Canada

RBC cardholders can link their card to Petro-Canada’s Petro-Points program to earn :

3¢ off per litre on fuel and 20% more Petro-Points
20% more RBC Rewards points (1.2 RBC Rewards points per dollar spent at Petro-Canada)

Earning RBC Rewards points with the card

This card allows you toearn RBC Rewards points based on your spending patterns.

1.25 RBC Rewards points / dollar for travel purchases

For all your travel purchases:

flights
Hotels
car rentals
and more!

You will earn an additional 25% RBC Rewards points. That’s 1.25 RBC Rewards points earned for every dollar in travel purchases.

1 RBC Rewards point per dollar everywhere else

For all other types of purchases, you’ll earn 1 RBC Rewards points per dollar.

Using RBC Rewards points

There are three main uses for RBC Rewards points:

For the purchase of trips
For the transfer of points to other programs
For the purchase of gift cards

Other uses are not optimal.

Paying for Travel with RBC Rewards points

RBC Rewards points can be used to purchase travel in two ways:

Through the fixed reward chart
Through the flexible reward chart

The RBC Rewards Fixed Reward Chart

This is how you’ll get the most out of your RBC Rewards points.

RBC offers a fixed reward chart divided into 6 levels depending on the type of flight :

Type of flight	RBC Points required	Maximum ticket price excluding taxes
Short getaways Any flight within a province, territory or U.S. state, or to a contiguous province, territory or U.S. state	15 000	$350
Discover North America Any flight anywhere in Canada or the United States, except Hawaii or Alaska.	35 000	$750
Holiday Destinations Western Canada or U.S. to Mexico, Hawaii or Alaska, Eastern Canada to Bermuda, Central America or the Caribbean	45 000	$900
Go on holiday Eastern Canada or United States to Mexico, Hawaii or Alaska, Western Canada to Bermuda, Central America or the Caribbean	55 000	$1,100
Visit Europe Any flight from a major point of departure in Canada or the United States to destinations in Europe	65 000	$1,300
The World Any flight from a major point of departure in Canada or the United States to destinations in Asia, Australia, New Zealand, the South Pacific, the Middle East, Africa or South America.	100 000	$2,000

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 ).

Please note: in order to benefit from this fare schedule, you must book a round trip (or multi-destinations) at least 14 days before departure.

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 rate is 35,000 RBC points(“Discover North America” level in the chart above) and $164.85 in taxes.

Flights are 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$.

The RBC Rewards Flexible Reward Chart

RBC points can also be used through the flexible reward chart. This is the famous “100 points = $1”.

Here, the 35,000 RBC Rewards points earned as a welcome bonus can be used for $350 off your trip.

Just use this when you:

Redeem points for travel rewards without using the Air Travel Rewards Redemption Schedule;
Redeem points for a hotel stay, car rental, cruise or vacation package;
Redeem points for one-way, business or first class airfare;
Book your trip less than 14 days in avance;
Pay more than the maximum dollar value set for a category;
Pay all taxes, fees and surcharges.

It’s not the best option for using your RBC Rewards points, but it is the easiest option for purchasing travel.

Converting RBC Rewards points to other programs

One of the strengths of the RBC Rewards Travel program is the ability to convert RBC Rewards points to other partner programs such as American Express or Marriott Bonvoy.

Here are the transfer partners and the normal exchange rate.

Frequent Flyer program	Conversion rate
	1,000 points = $10 Westjet dollars
	10,000 points = 10,000 Avios miles
	10,000 points = 10,000 Asia miles
	5,000 points = 3,500 AAdvantage miles
	5,000 points = 10,000 points Hudson Bay Rewards

From time to time, RBC Rewards organizes 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!

Buying gift cards with RBC Rewards points

If travel purchases with points aren’t for you… there’s another way to use your RBC Rewards points: purchasing gift cards.

We don’t usually recommend this method for valuable points like American Express Membership Rewards, but at RBC Rewards there are regular gift cards promotions!

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.

Card Insurance

As this card is intended for travellers, it includes the usual “Visa Infinite” level of insurance:

Out-of-Province / Out-of-Country Medical Emergency Insurance
Travel accident insurance
Auto Rental Collision/Loss Damage Insurance
Trip Cancellation/Trip Interruption Insurance
Flight delay insurance and purchase of basic necessities
Hotel or motel burglary insurance
Purchase Security and Extended Warranty Coverage

The insurance booklet is available here.

Conclusion

This is an interesting credit card to get when it is on promotion. The possibility to use your points in different ways, and especially when there are conversion bonuses to British Airways Executive Club, is a plus.