There’s another new partnership in the Canadian loyalty landscape as RBC and Canadian Tire have announced a long-term strategic loyalty partnership between Avion Rewards and Triangle Rewards.
The new Avion Rewards – Triangle Rewards partnership
Here’s how RBC and Canadian Tire describe this new collaboration:
Under this partnership, eligible RBC credit and debit cardholders will be able to earn Canadian Tire Money at an accelerated rate when shopping at CTC’s retail banners. They will also enjoy exclusive offers and promotions through RBC and Avion Rewards. These new offerings are expected to launch in 2026..
We saw the first inkling of this partnership when Canadian Tire announced last year that they are looking to grow the program beyond their own stores. Here’s a quote from last December:
“We are actively engaged in conversations with several of Canada’s largest brands about loyalty partnerships that are expected to broaden the value of Triangle Rewards – giving more Canadians more reasons to shop with us.”
Obviously RBC Avion Rewards was one of the largest brands they were having conversations with and this new partnership exudes that quote to a tee. “giving more Canadians more reasons to shop with us.” And yes now the plan is to get more RBC cardholders to shop at Canadian Tire, Mark’s, Sport Chek etc. as they’ll earn additional CT Money on top of whatever rewards they are receiving on their RBC cards.
How the partnership will work
At this time all we know is that when you link an eligible RBC payment product (credit or debit card) to your Triangle Rewards account you’ll earn extra Canadian Tire Money when shopping at any of the retail stores that Canadian Tire operates. These include Canadian Tire, Sport Chek, Party City, Mark’s, Sports Experts and more. And with “eligible RBC credit and debit card” I would assume at this time that it is any of those that fall into the Avion Premium or Elite levels as well as their co-brand credit cards with WestJet, British Airways and perhaps More Rewards.
In addition to the extra CT Money being earned when you use your linked RBC payment product at those stores there will be exclusive promotions launching in 2026. These may include statement credits and/or bonus points via RBC Offers, exclusive discounts for shopping (Just like we saw with Petro-Points Sport Chek earlier this month) and other promotions.
Do the math!
Once the partnership does go live, you’ll have to “do the math” to see if it makes sense to switch from the payment card you currently use to using an RBC card for purchases at Canadian Tire, Mark’s etc. It will come down to how much extra CT Money that you will earn.
If we take the Moi Rewards-RBC partnership where you can earn extra Moi Rewards points for using your linked RBC payment product, the extra value is very minimal so for many people it isn’t enough to move the needle to use an RBC payment card at Metro stores etc. over the many credit cards that have grocery store accelerators.
I would guess that for those who have and use Triangle Mastercards it won’t be worth it to do so. And for me personally, I use the Marriott Bonvoy American Express Card at all Canadian Tire brand stores as that earns us 2 Bonvoy Points per dollar spent (With a value of 2%-3% or more) and I still collect CT Money on the actual purchase. My only RBC card right now is the WestJet World Elite Mastercard which earns 1.5% at Canadian Tire. So for me to use the WestJet card over the Bonvoy card I would need this linked rewards option to provide at 1% extra or more CT Money to consider making that switch.
Wrapping it up
Any time you have new loyalty partnerships that allow you to earn more, it’s great news for those who can utilize those partnerships. Canadian Tire, Mark’s, Sport Chek and their other stores are considered major players in the market so it won’t be difficult for RBC debit and credit card holders to earn additional CT Money. There is no reason why people should not be linking the programs once the partnership goes live. Whether you shop with Canadian Tire’s brands once per year or once per day, you should be making the effort to earn the extra rewards.
With all that said, as exciting of news as this is, it doesn’t help the underlying issue with Avion Rewards’ core value proposition. The core program continues to provides less value than Scene+, Aeroplan, CIBC Aventura Rewards, Amex Membership Rewards and the list goes on. And it’s quite apparent that RBC has found it costs them less to implement partnerships like this one with Canadian Tire to give a perceived improvement of value than to actually improve the Avion Rewards program.
Unfortunately that’s what happens when you have such a large existing cardholder base that is a captive audience. Why give all of your clients more when you can simply give a little bit more selectively to some who use Petro-Canada, who use Rexall, who use Canadian Tire, and possibly sometime in the future may use More Rewards partners.
For those cardholders that don’t visit any of those retailers there is no increased value in the program and no additional cost to RBC. It really is an excellent masterclass on RBC’s part on how not to give away the bank when you have a large clientele base that have yet to discover the better value propositions of the competitors.
What about the More Rewards partnership?
Still no news here, we’re still waiting to see what transpires with the Avion Rewards-More Rewards Partnership. Yes, RBC launched the More Rewards credit cards but those have no tie in with Avion Rewards and RBC’s announcement from 2024 stated a partnership between Avion Rewards and More Rewards.
Recommended reading: RBC Avion Rewards teams up with More Rewards