In many of my past meetings with credit card issuers I have always been asked the question what can we do to enhance the offerings for our proprietary credit card program cardholders. One thing I always mention is adding more partners to earn points is key, think coalition program style a la AIR MILES and Aeroplan. Now RBC was not one of those issuers that I met with but they seem to be on the same wavelength as me with their RBC Rewards program. They want to give their members more value in the program than just earning points via credit card spend. Hence a couple of years ago they launched the RBC Rewards emall for online shopping and now we have this partnership with airbnb. I thought it may have been Rocketmiles or Pointshound first as I know one of these two companies was in negotiations with RBC but it looks like that have been put on hold d by this limited time partnership with airbnb.
To celebrate the launch of the partnership RBC Rewards members will earn 2x points on all eligible bookings with airbnb and if you it is your first booking with airbnb you’ll get an additional 7,000 bonus RBC Rewards points. Both of these bonuses end on Feb 29, 16. After that point you earn the regular RBC Rewards points rate that your card provides on any airbnb bookings. To be eligible for the 7,000 bonus points you must not have used an RBC credit card or debit card for the 24 months prior with airbnb. You can find out more on the partnership and bonus offers here.
This is the second major loyalty partnership for airbnb as just about a month or so ago they launched a partnership with Virgin America’s Elevate program.