Rewards Canada reader Jeffrey alerted us to this change that came about today and it isn’t good news! Holders of a RBC Avion Visa card will no longer get 1 American AAdvantage Miles for every 1 RBC Reward point transferred. The new transfer rate as of today is 7 AAdvantage Miles for every 10 RBC Rewards points. That’s a 30% reduction which is huge! Here is how Jeffrey feels about it:
I was/am pretty unhappy about this, because it’s
1) a major devaluation;
2)
I wasn’t given any heads up, although I’m on RBC Rewards’ mailing list,
because of which I receive the newsletter regularly. Yet that didn’t
mention anything about this;
3) on top of this, since my statement
closes later in May, it will be too late to charge my credit card with
the necessary spending in order meet the minimum 5,000 pts required to
convert. (I already converted many points into BA miles).
I contacted RBC about my dissatisfaction, but they did not come up with any solution.
As I only use that card to convert the points into BA and AA miles, I told them I will stop using the card.
The new RBC Rewards website does a terrible job of detailing RBC Rewards Points transfers to other programs unless I guess you are a customer and log in. Seeing that I am not a customer I can’t find any mention of the new redemption rate. The only details I can find are the actual RBC Rewards program terms and conditions which still state the old redemption rate:
 |
| Screen shot take May 2nd at 11:04am MST |
So you may have a little recourse until those T&C’s are updated to try and snag 1 Mile per point from RBC. Otherwise this AAdvantage mile earning option for Canadians just got worse. Your best bet for earning AAdvantage miles now in Canada is the Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card from American Express.
Question to all of you Avion cardholders who hold this card primarily for AAdvantage miles. What are you planning to do now that the redemption rate has been lowered?