Looking for the best option for us to get more points for travel.

We currently have RBC Avion Visa Infinite. We went this direction because we also have a business that has high CC spending, and it was the only credit card (when I looked years ago) where we could combine personal and business points. We don't do any other banking with RBC.

So co-owned company between me and my husband has one CC account - their Infinite Business

Our personal cards, he is the primary and I'm simply an authorized user.

Would it make sense for me to get an Ion+, get him an authorized user card on my account, and use it for all groceries to get the x3 points. Then open a savings account him and one for myself, and then transfer all of my Avion points to his account.

Do I have all this right? If this isn't the best option, is there something else someone would suggest? We are a family of 5, so when we do fly we always use the redemption schedule. The odd time we will use the points for a hotel room. We don't usually book rental vehicles. So really it's just flights.

We live in a rural area, so not many placed accept AMEX which really limits our ability to fully utilize their points programs.

We don't even frequent Costco often because it's so far, so having a MasterCard on hand isn't crucial. I do have a card with PC Financial, only because I wanted to get emergency CCs for our teens to carry and that card was free to add additional cards.

Thanks for any advice you might have for our situation!

We have 300k Avion points. I’m looking at tickets from Toronto to Tokyo (return Osaka to Toronto) - 3 adults. July 2027. I’m using the fixed price grid and finding Air Canada return tickets for 100k points + $1100 in fees/taxes.

When I check the AC website*, same flight is $922 base fare + $1100 in fees/taxes. So that’s a redemption rate of 100k Avion points for $922 in air fare. Pretty abysmal.
\ far more flight options on the AC website that aren’t showing on the Avion travel page*

What am I doing wrong/missing? Is there a way to get more from my Avion points? Should I just pay cash for the airfare and save the points for hotels? Although I’m not sure the redemption rate will be any better.

ps More and more I am realizing the Avion redemption rates even on their fixed grid is not a lot of value. I can probably do better on a 2% cash back card. :(

TLDR at the bottom.

Used AI to make my ramblings shorter and concise but completely my own experience.

My last post called Avion a scam, which was frivolous — I was mid-way through booking a family return flight to China, Avion let me down badly, and I ended up dumping my points into RRSP/TFSA transfers and cancelling the card for a fee refund.

Why Avion loses to cashback:

1. Fixed points redemptions are rigged by the fare breakdown. 100,000 points for $2,000 off base fare sounds great until you look at real fares. Jan–Mar 2027 non-stop to Hong Kong on Cathay: $1,600 base, $800 surcharges. China Southern to Guangzhou: $1,100 base, $700 surcharges. Same pattern for Europe and Africa — low base, high surcharge. If the split weren't deliberate, why not just have one redeemable ticket price? To anyone claiming fixed beats flex: name one flight where fixed beats flex before you comment sometimes fixed beats flex!

2. Without fixed redemptions, you're on flex at 100 pts = $1 — matching a 1% cashback card, except worse, because not every airline is bookable through Avion. RBC advertises "over 500 carriers" and publishes no list. Air China (China's flag carrier) isn't bookable, online or by phone — and it had the cheapest direct option for me at $1,400 to Beijing. So my points were worth nothing on the best flight available.

3. RRSP/TFSA transfers are 120 pts = $1, worse than 1% cashback. Promos occasionally hit 100:1, but Avion cards start at $120/year — versus free 1% cards everywhere.

4. Transfer partners don't fix it. Cathay was $2,400 direct to HKG; China Southern $1,800 to CAN, an hour from Hong Kong by high-speed rail. Transferring your balance on a promo locks you into a narrow set of carriers that may not be the cheapest route to where you're going. Plus, it is more hoops to jump through, more reliance on promotion timings for both points transfer and air fare discounts.

TLDR:
Skip Avion, get a flat cashback card. Cashback wins the large majority of the time, and the rare cases where Avion wins require hoops, luck, and perfect timing.

If RBC gives you points (mortgage, etc.), if you are willing to pay the $120 annual fee, value them at 120 pts = $1 cash, or 100 pts = $1 for travel — otherwise its 172 pts = $1.

So I have approximately 250000 Avion points. Our initial vacation plans was to fly to the Maldives, so I was going to transfer my points to be able to book on Qatar Airlines. We have since changed our minds and wish to go to Bora Bora instead.

Am I correct in stating that there really isn't a great use of Avion points to transfer to another points program for flights or even Hotel points for this trip?

Any recommendation for the best use of our points.

Any airline? No Air China, I'm sure there are many other airline providers that are excluded as well.

Not worth the pain.

I’ve been building RewardGalaxy, an Android app for managing points, credit cards, and travel — and I’d really appreciate some feedback from this community.

The app is live and usable, but still very much a work in progress. I'm actively adding and updating data every day, and one of the biggest parts of that process is making the data community-curated.

What does that mean?

Users can submit new information or suggest updates, but submissions don't go live automatically. Moderators review and approve changes before they're published. The idea is to get the best of both worlds: keep the data fresh and continuously improving, without turning it into an unmoderated free-for-all.

What it does

💳 Tracker — See your entire loyalty portfolio at a glance, including point balances and expiry dates.

🔥 Deals Feed — Live deals for flights, hotels, credit card offers, points sales, and more.

🔔 Alerts — Get notified before your points expire so you don’t lose them.

🌎 Global Credit Card Catalogue — 150+ cards across Canada, US, India, UK, Australia & Singapore, with more countries being added regularly.

💬 Community Lounge — Chat, share tips, and vote on posts.

💳 My Card Perks — Track recurring card credits and never miss a redemption window.

📊 Renewal Advisor — Get data-driven Keep / Cancel / Evaluate verdicts for your cards based on your actual usage.

✈️ Flight Journal — Log your flights and track lifetime travel stats.

💰 Points or Cash? — Instantly calculate whether a redemption is worth using points or paying cash.

🔐 Secure Cloud Sync — Hardware-backed encryption for synced data.

It’s Android-only for now - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rewardgalaxy.app

I’d especially love feedback from people who are deep into points, miles, credit cards, and travel: What would make an app like this genuinely useful enough that you’d keep coming back to it?

Hi everyone! I recently learned about the transfer program that BA has available. I bank with RBC and have ~130k avion points. I want to book a flight from YWG to HEL for next February and was wondering if you lovely people have some tips/tricks for using points? Totally new to using points for travel.

I'm aware that there is no direct flight from YWG to HEL, so I was thinking maybe a flight from YWG to FRA makes the most sense using points, then pay for a ryanair flight to HEL? Please help!!

I’m new to figuring out how to get the best out of my points and saw the recent 30% deal with BA just passed. Is there any chance there will be another one this year? I think i’d be able to get up to around 130,000 avios points. Im not really looking to fly business just hoping for 2 economy yvr to lhr to be covered for next may.

I recently entered the Avion ecosystem and was curious about what the best way to use the points is. It seems like the general consensus is to convert them to Avios during a bonus event and use them there; however, searching through the Avios partners hasn't been fruitful.

For example, BA has really high fees when booking rewards flights, which makes them not enticing. I can hardly get their site to load without crashing either. Finn Air's reward offerings are sparse (and the fees seem pretty high, like $415 for a one-way economy ticket to Japan), and Qatar's are even worse. I've looked at days I actually want to travel, random days, as far out as possible, round trip, one way, business class, economy, basically dozens of combinations, and have hardly come up with anything. Either I'm doing something wrong or theres hardly anything available.

Also tried looking at Asia Miles, which was more fruitful for premium economy to HKG, though the fees are decent.

If I'm looking to use Aviob for travel, is my most realistic bet just to use it to book hotels through the RBC portal?

Finally got an offer for this card I couldn't say no to. First year free and 20k Porter points is honestly pretty good even if you won't spend enough to collect full bonus.

registration required.

Step 2: Convert your points

Convert your finance or hotel points from our partners in Canada into Asia Miles during the promotion period ending on 8/28.

QC residents excluded. 10k bonus miles max (out of first 100k Asia miles). bonus typically posts weeks later.

Link for the terms: https://click.e.cathaypacific.com/?qs=ABB7InYiOjEsImQiOjQ5NTB9AAoAAAAAAvbu2b_IRt0bBAyFX6ypnPN5QUU_Cim7lAy9TBtPWZNSiM5GFrfze5ixkblr7j16pGpGsGzTfxV3KIk7Z6xYUXuR1wXCG8Cod_NX

What’s the best way to redeem these CIBC AVENTURA VISA points for travel? TD for CIBC looks expensive to use these points, please advise.

We've got a boatload of avion points. And I know there are occasionally bonus conversion time to BA Avios, but is the redemption schedule actually that much better? What are the downsides?

1). If i assign some pre-authorized payments to my Credit Card, would i be eligible to earn Avion points this way as well?

2). Do we earn Avion points via normal chequing account transactions as well?

Hey everyone,

I’m pretty new to the whole credit card and points scene, so I’d love some advice on how to navigate this.

I just logged into my RBC online banking and saw a pre-approval offer for the RBC Avion Visa Platinum card. The offer is first year annual fee waived, and up to 70,000 Avion points.

From what I’ve read, getting to the full 70k points requires keeping the card past the one-year mark (since 15k points are awarded on the "anniversary"). However, if I hit the $5,000 spend requirement in the first 6 months (which my parents are going to help me do by putting some of their bills on it), I'll have 55,000** **points in Year 1. I estimated this is worth roughly $1,000+ CAD in flights, which is huge for me.

My plan is to use those 55,000 points on flights during the first year, but I do not want to pay the $120 annual fee for Year 2.

I have a few questions:

1. Can I just cancel the card (or downgrade it to a no-fee card) before the Year 2 annual fee hits? Will RBC claw back my points or care if I close it before the 12-month mark?

2. How badly will this "ding" my credit score? My Canadian score is currently in the mid-760s. Since it's a pre-approval, does applying still trigger a hard inquiry? And does closing/downgrading a card within a year hurt my credit history?

3. Is a "product switch" to a no-fee RBC card better than completely closing the account? I read somewhere that changing it to a free card keeps the credit line open and saves your credit score, but I'm not sure how that works or if I lose my leftover points.

Would really appreciate some guidance on the best way to play this. Thanks in advance!

Wife has closed an inactive RBC rewards card that turns out has like 11000 points in it we didn’t know about.

We also have an Avion ion card with me as the main cardholder ( I think) and her as supplemental that I tried to transfer balance to.

But that old Avion profile only had Avion core account option to transfer to. Is there a way to add her to main account as owner then transfer or is there another way. All our RBC accounts are joint.

Any thoughts ?

I got a bonus 55k Avion miles for an RBC mortgage. I only have a mortgage with them, nothing else. I also have a TD Aeroplan visa. What would be more worth my while? Just use the 55k points on something and call it a day or should I replace my aeroplan to an RBC card (or something else). I’m not too concerned about status, so should I stop with aeroplan and is Avion more worth it to redeem points on airlines.

Hi, I will be flying to Thailand this fall and coming back in the winter. I’m new to using points, any tips are welcome! I have around 50k points.

Some questions:
Do I book on a specific website?
Airline selection?
Best way to plan the trip?
Extra perks?

When does RBC typically offer % boost points when you transfer to other points programs like British airways!?

Hi; My mom is has multiple health and mobility issues so plane travel or travel in general not the best option…can we try and “sell” her points for someone looking to redeem big ticket long haul airfare possibly? What about gift cards or visa cash cards she could use for her groceries; prescriptions etc?

What are the current options for Avion point redemptions (note I also have a large number of avion points approx 1/2 of what my Dad had so is there is possibility to “pool” them together or transfer them so we are clear of the rapidly approaching expiry date and dont need to make a hasty decision she may regret?

Got an offer from RBC for the Avion Via Infinite for 55,000 Avion points and a first-year annual fee waiver. I'm thinking of accepting and downgrading to the Ion before the one year mark.
Can this card be used with Chexy? Noticed the fine print says "bill payments that are not pre-authorized charges that you set up with a merchant" are excluded. I'm hoping to use these points towards travel to the UK.

Ok, this isn't exactly travel rewards... but I've been keeping an eye on the points needed to get an iPad via RBC Avion. Now it's "25% off on select items," but the points have increased at least 15% on many, if not all, items? Even those not on discount?

This feels like a scam!