You are currently viewing RBC Avion – The Second-Best Points 

RBC Avion – The Second-Best Points 

If you’ve come this far, you’re moving from Points Curious to Points Motivated.

In my last article, we covered why American Express Membership Rewards are the best points to earn in Canada. They are flexible, transferable, easy to earn through strong welcome bonuses and category multipliers, and can unlock excellent travel value.

But Amex is not perfect.

Even though American Express acceptance in Canada is much better than many people think, in the range of 80-90%, it is still not universal. There are important gaps: Costco, the Loblaws family of stores, and some smaller independent businesses. That is why almost every Canadian who is serious about points should have a strong backup Visa or Mastercard.

This is where RBC Avion comes in.

Why RBC Avion Points Matter

RBC Avion points are essentially the only other truly useful transferable points currency in Canada (Marriott Bonvoy points are the other, but at transfer ratios of 3:1, it’s a niche use case for the most part).

Avion Elite points can be transferred to several airline programs, including:

  • British Airways Avios
  • Cathay Pacific Asia Miles
  • American Airlines AAdvantage
  • WestJet Rewards 

Why is WestJet not in bold typeface like the other three you ask? I’ll answer that shortly.

That matters because transferable points give you options.

You are not locked into one airline. You can wait until you find good award availability, then move your points to the program that gives you the best value.

Why Avion Is Not Better Than Amex Overall

Let’s be clear: I still think Amex Membership Rewards are the best points in Canada.

Amex has more transfer partners, stronger earning opportunities through cards like the Cobalt, Business Gold, and Business Platinum, and a better overall ecosystem for both personal and business spending.

But Avion fills a very important gap.

It gives you a Visa-based transferable points currency, which means you can earn points in places where Amex does not work. That alone makes Avion extremely useful.

The Best Uses of RBC Avion Points

The best use of Avion points is not cash back, gift cards, or merchandise.

The best use is transferring to airline partners.

The most useful Avion transfer partners are:

  1. British Airways Avios 1:1
  2. Cathay Pacific Asia Miles 1:1
  3. American Airlines AAdvantage 1:0.7

You may also recall that British Avios transfer 1:1 to Finnair, Iberia, Qatar, Aer Lingus, and Vueling.

Just like with Amex transfer partners, these airlines use variable value points, meaning they are unbundled from cash costs, and allow you to get outsized value when redeeming for first class, business class, premium economy, or peak season economy flights.

WestJet is technically a transfer partner, but we’ll get to why it’s a bad idea to transfer your Avion points to them, I promise.

Why Avion Can Actually Beat Amex in Certain Situations

Although Amex is the stronger overall program, there are a few specific situations where Avion is actually better.

1. Transfer bonuses to British Airways Avios

RBC regularly runs transfer bonuses to British Airways Avios, often twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall. The bonus is normally 30% more Avios, meaning 10,000 Avion points became 13,000 Avios during the promo period. 

Getting 30% more value from your points, or a 30% discount on your award flight points cost, is huge. 

Because Amex MR and Avion both normally transfer to British Airways Avios at 1:1, a 30% transfer bonus means Avion temporarily becomes the better way to generate Avios.

So if your goal was Qatar Airways Q-suites from Toronto or Montreal to the Maldives or Kenya or Egypt (via Doha) for 85,000 points one way, it would only cost ~65,400 points during a 30% transfer bonus. 

If you wanted to visit Madrid from Toronto on Iberia in business class, what normally would cost as little as 40,500points would be ~31,150 points during the transfer bonus.

Or perhaps you wanted to go from Toronto to Dublin on Aer Lingus in economy during “off-peak” dates which would normally cost just 13,000 points, now would only cost 10,000 points.

2. Avion transfers better to Cathay Pacific than Amex

This is one of the most underrated advantages of RBC Avion.

RBC Avion points transfer to Cathay Pacific Asia Miles at a 1:1 ratio, while American Express Canada transfers to Cathay Pacific at a 1:0.75 ratio. That’s a 33% difference. 

That means Avion is the better Canadian currency for building Cathay Pacific Asia Miles.

This matters if you want to book Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong and beyond into Asia.

3. Avion is the only practical way to earn American Airlines miles in Canada

American Airlines AAdvantage miles are hard to earn in Canada.

Unlike the U.S., we do not have a big ecosystem of American Airlines co-branded credit cards. RBC Avion is one of the only realistic ways for Canadians to generate AAdvantage miles through credit card spend.

The transfer ratio is not perfect — Avion to AAdvantage is 1:0.7 — but access itself is valuable because AAdvantage can be very useful for certain partner redemptions. Additionally, Avion sometimes has 15% transfer bonuses making the ratio ~1:0.8.

One aspirational redemption is booking Etihad first class, known as The Apartment and considered to be one of the best first class experiences, between Toronto and Abu Dhabi for 115,000 AA miles. And since pricing is region based, you can add on a segment in business class, say to the Maldives, for no additional points.

The RBC Avion Flight Chart: Arguably the Best Fixed-Value Travel Redemption in Canada

One of the most overlooked strengths of RBC Avion is the Air Travel Redemption Schedule.

This is RBC’s fixed-points flight chart, and it is arguably one of the best flight redemption tools in Canada — especially for people who want strong value for economy (or sometimes premium economy) flights without dealing with airline award availability. You aren’t going to travel in luxury this way, and it isn’t the way to get maximum value from your points, but it can be a reasonably good option in some circumstances.

With airline transfer partners, you usually need to find award seats. That can be amazing when it works, but its not every flight on any date that can be booked this way. The RBC Avion flight chart is different.

With the Avion Air Travel Redemption Schedule, you can book any airline, any flight, any time, with no blackout dates or advance booking restrictions, as long as you are booking through Avion Rewards and the fare fits within the chart’s maximum ticket price. RBC specifically describes this as fixed-points pricing on any airline, any flight, any time, even during peak periods. 

Not everyone wants to search for saver award space, position to another airport, or wait for business-class availability to appear. Sometimes you just want to book the flight that works for your family, your work schedule, or your vacation dates.

This is where the Avion flight chart shines.

For round-trip flights, the current chart includes:

image

One-way flights are also available at half the points and half the maximum ticket price. 

The math is simple: if you can get close to the maximum ticket price, you can get 2 cents per Avion point.

For example:

  • 65,000 Avion points can cover a round-trip Europe ticket up to $1,300.
  • 100,000 Avion points can cover a round-trip long-haul ticket up to $2,000.

That is why the Avion chart is so powerful. It gives you a clear, predictable way to get strong value from points without needing to understand airline alliance rules, married segment logic, saver award space, or dynamic pricing.

There are a few important caveats. The maximum ticket price is referring to the base price and excludes taxes, surcharges, and fees, so you still have to pay those separately. If a ticket base price costs more than the “maximum”, you can pay the difference with cash or with additional points at 1 cent per point (the latter is not great value). 

So the best use of the RBC flight chart is when the ticket cost is at or just above the “max ticket price” for a category such that you are at or near 2cpp. If the economy price is low, consider booking premium economy to have a slightly better flying experience and bring the ticket price closer to the maximum.

This is another reason I consider RBC Avion the second-best points currency in Canada.

Why You Should Not Transfer Avion Points to WestJet

This is important: I would almost never transfer Avion points to WestJet points.

WestJet points are a fixed-value currency valued at 1 cent per point. You are not going to get the same upside that you can get from British Airways Avios, Cathay Pacific Asia Miles, or AAdvantage. Transferring to these other 3 partners unlocks award flights that can be worth 2-5 cents per point (or more) and as such, you would be losing value by transferring to WestJet.

If you want to book WestJet flights with points, it much better to use Flying Blue instead (which is a 1:1 transfer partner from Amex MR). Flying Blue allows members to spend miles on WestJet flights marketed and operated by WestJet. 

For example, lets say you want to take the family to Jamaica over March break. Those flights for 4, round trip in economy with WestJet cost 108,500 Flying Blue miles plus $983 in taxes/fees.  If you booked the same flight in cash, it would cost ~$3900. So in cpp, that’s $3900 – 983 = $2917 ÷ 108,500 = 2.68cpp, which is excellent value.

Though you could use WestJet points to cover the entire cost of the trip, including the taxes/fees, to compare apples to apples, lets subtract the $983 in taxes and fees from the $3900 cost, leaving us with $2917. Since WestJet points are valued at 1 cent per point, it would cost 291,700 WestJet points so save the same $2917 as Flying Blue did. You’d need 3x the points to redeem the same flight if you used WestJet points.

The lesson is:
Do not transfer Avion points to WestJet just because you are flying WestJet. Assuming you have Amex MR, let them do the heavy lifting with WestJet by using Flying Blue.

Save your Avion points for the other three transfer partners.

The Real RBC Avion Strategy: Use Two Cards

Here is where Avion gets interesting.

The best RBC setup is usually not just one card. It is a two-card strategy:

  1. RBC ION+ Visa — the earning engine
  2. RBC Avion Visa Infinite, Avion Visa Platinum, or Avion Visa Infinite Privilege — the transfer gateway

The RBC ION+ Visa earns 3x Avion points on categories like groceries, gas, dining, food delivery, rideshare, and streaming services and 1x on everything else. The annual fee on this card is only $48.  

Though not as strong as the 5x earning from the Amex Cobalt, the 3x earning is across more categories and with Visa being accepted essentially everywhere, this makes the ION+ a very strong everyday Visa card.

The one issue to note is that the ION+ earns Avion Premium points which are not as powerful as Avion Elite points. Avion Premium points can only be transferred to WestJet and we’ve already covered why this is generally a poor idea. 

The real magic happens when you also hold an Avion Elite card such as 

  • Avion Visa Platinum
  • Avion Visa Infinite
  • Avion Visa Infinite Privilege
  • Avion Visa Infinite Business

Holding one of these cards allows you to transfer your ION+ Avion Premium points over to Avion Elite points 1:1which then unlocks the powerful transfer partners of British, Cathay, and American Airlines. 

So the strategy is simple:

Earn 3x on the ION+ Visa, move the points to your Avion Elite account, then transfer to airline partners.

Why This Works So Well

The RBC ION+ Visa has the 3x multiplier.

The Avion Elite card has the transfer power.

Used together, they turn RBC from a mediocre earning setup into one of the best Visa-based points strategies in Canada.

This setup is especially useful for:

  • Loblaws-family grocery stores where Amex is not accepted
  • Costco.ca purchases (Visa IS accepted unlike in-store), including buying Costco Shop Cards (to then use in-store)
  • merchants that do not accept Amex
  • Chexy payments where Visa is accepted but Amex is not:
    • Salary payments
    • Commercial rent payments
    • Overhead payments

For business owners, RBC also has business Avion cards. The RBC Avion Visa Infinite Business earns 1.25 Avion points per dollar on net purchases up to $75,000 per year at a very reasonable $175 annual fee. 

RBC Avion & Amex MR: How I Think About It

Here is the simple framework:

Amex MR is the best primary points currency in Canada.

Use Amex where it is accepted, especially in high-multiplier categories.

RBC Avion is the best backup transferable currency.

Use Avion where Amex does not work, or where RBC has a unique advantage.

The two programs complement each other.

A strong Canadian points setup might look like this:

Personal Spend

  • Amex Cobalt for 5x dining and grocery where Amex is accepted
  • RBC ION+ Visa for 3x earning where Amex isn’t accepted
  • RBC Avion Visa Infinite to unlock Elite transfer partners 
    Note: For health care professionals, the annual fee can be waived

Business Spend

  • Amex Business Platinum or Business Gold for business spend and Chexy payments
  • RBC Avion Visa Infinite Business for business spend where Amex isn’t accepted or Chexy payments that are Visa-only (this is also another way to unlock Elite transfer partners) 

This 2-program set up gives you access to all the best airline transfer partners:

  • Aeroplan (via Amex) 
  • British Avios (via both programs but with the transfer bonuses of Avion)
  • Flying Blue (via Amex)
  • Cathay Pacific (via both programs but at the better 1:1 ratio of RBC Avion) 
  • American Airlines AAdvantage (via RBC Avion)

That is a very strong Canadian points ecosystem.

Final Thoughts: Are RBC Avion Points Worth Collecting?

Though American Express Membership Rewards are still king, Avion points are well worth collecting.

They are obtained on a VISA that is accepted nearly everywhere, are flexible, transferable, and uniquely valuable for Avios transfer bonuses, Cathay Pacific Asia Miles, and American Airlines AAdvantage.

Use the RBC ION+ Visa to earn quickly. Hold an Avion Elite card to unlock the best transfer partners. Be patient for transfer bonuses. And transfer only when you have a clear redemption in mind.

One Asterisk

RBC Avion points are worth collecting…for most Canadians…but arguably not all Canadians.

Many of the advantages of Avion are transferring to Avios and travelling from Toronto to Dublin, Madrid, Helsinki, Qatar/Abu Dhabi and beyond or transferring to Cathay Pacific and going from the west coast to Asia. As such, Avion is a great secondary currency for Canadians living around the Toronto area, or willing to reposition there for a flight, or those living on the west coast and wanting to go to Asia. 

For those based on the east coast, using an Aeroplan Visa (from TD or CIBC) as the secondary currency behind Amex can make more sense. 

 Referrals

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For Amex credit cards earning Membership Rewards, the most powerful and flexible travel points in Canada, like the Cobalt, Gold, Business Gold, Platinum, and Business Platinum please use the following link. 

If you shop a lot (>$550 month) at Costco and are interested in flying to Europe, the Brim Flying Blue Mastercard is a solid choice and can be applied for using this link.

After your flight is sorted out, you’ll need a hotel room. For Amex credit cards that earn Marriott Bonvoy points such as the Marriott Bonvoy Amex and Marriott Bonvoy Business Amex, please use the following link.

To supercharge your points earning, use Chexy via this link to pay for things like rent, taxes, professional fees and other expenses that normally cannot go on a credit card.

Once you have accumulated points, you will need to search for flight redemptions efficiently. Roame is the best tool to quickly search multiple programs, multiple destinations, across many dates. Please use the following link and use code PP25 for 25% off the Friends of Roame subscription.

If you are new to points and rewards and want to learn more about optimization and have a personalized approach, please reach out to me for a free one-on-one session.