THIS OFFER HAS EXPIRED
If I recall correctly it has been a good six months or more since we’ve seen RBC push out any enhanced offers for their flagship RBC Avion Visa Infinite Card but now we finally have one albeit a targeted one. Once again a big thank you to Anik D. for alerting us to this offer!
Based on the terms and conditions from the offer landing page this offer appears to come from either an email and/or mail out being sent out to select Canadians as it states the following:
To be exempt from the annual fee for one year (the “annual fee waiver
offer”) and to receive 15,000 RBC Rewards points (or “welcome points”),
your application must be received by the date indicated on the
communication you received from us for this offer, and it must be
approved by us. Upon enrolment, 15,000 welcome points will appear on
your first monthly statement. To receive the additional 5,000 RBC
Rewards points (“bonus points”) when you spend $1,000 or more within 3
months of account opening your (i) application must be approved by us,
(ii) credit card account must be in good standing since your account
open date and the bonus points will be credited to your account on the
first monthly statement after the spend criteria has been met.
So the question is, do you try applying for it? Great question and we cannot give you a definite answer. In the past most people have had success applying for these targeted RBC offers even if they didn’t receive the communication but I have to stress there is no guarantee it will work for you. So if you do try it is at your discretion and remember YMMV (Your mileage may vary). If you do apply and it works out you’ll earn a 15,000 RBC Rewards point welcome bonus upon approval plus you’ll get the first year annual fee waived on the primary card. Then if you spend $1,000 on the card in the first three months of having it you’ll score an additional 5,000 points. That gives you 20,000 points in total and the beauty of having no annual fee in the first year. This has been a pretty common offer for this card in the past but it isn’t the best by far. This past spring the card had a 35,000 point welcome offer but you did have to pay the annual fee. Whether we’ll see that 35K offer make a return sometime in the future is unknown, even the magic 8 ball doesn’t seem to know the answer:
Image via Spikes Eight Ball Knows All
Here is what the 20,000 points will get you:
- One economy class flight within or to an adjacent province/territory or U.S. state (Hawaii and
Alaska excluded) up to a value of $350. Taxes and fees are not included but you can redeem points
towards them at 100 points to $1 rate or just pay for them with your
credit card. Since you would have at least 6,000 more points (the 20,000 points plus 1,000 points for your $1,000 in spending) you could use that pay for part of the taxes and fees - $200 credit towards any other travel booked via RBC Rewards (100 points = $1)
- Convert the 20,000 points to WestJet Rewards at a 100 to 1 ratio.
This means the offer provides 200 WestJet dollars. Several times per
year RBC also offers a bonus when you transfer to WestJet. That bonus
tends to be 10% so these 20,000 points could be converted to 220 WestJet
dollars or more if the bonus is higher - Convert the 20,000 points to British Airways Executive Club at a 1:1
ratio. 20,000 Avios will get you close to an economy class round trip flight between
Toronto and Dublin (as little as 26,000 Avios required), or you could get the one way flight no problem at 13,000 Avios. RBC also offers transfer bonuses several times
per year (which hopefully we should see the next one around May or so) and those
range from 30% to 50% meaning you could potentially have 26,000 to 30,000 Avios not including the points you earned from your spend – easily covering that Toronto to Dublin flight.
Recommended reading: Utilizing British Airways’ Executive Club for flights in North America
Now the above redemptions are all travel related –
which of course at this time is still extremely curtailed but it doesn’t hurt
to start planning for the future and this card with this offer can be a
decent boost towards those future vacations. RBC does have financial options to redeem for as well like paying down your credit card balance or redeeming for RBC financial products. All of which will provide less value than the travel options above but it’s nice to know you that option is always there to redeem for cash or cash equivalents.
Remember as well this card does have some additional benefits like RBC Offers.
If you are new to RBC offers I recommend reading our Guide to Royal Bank RBC Offers
It’s nice to see RBC bring back a new offer for the main card in their portfolio even if it is targetted.
Find out more and apply for the card at your discretion here.