Why the TD's "Infinite First Class" card is better than RBC's Infinite Avion card
Why the TD's "Infinite First Class" card is better than RBC's Infinite Avion card
While just about all of their features are equivalent (travel and cancellation insurance, car rental, blah blah), it really comes down to the points program.
First, understand that with TD card, you must always convert points to dollars, there is no such thing as converting points directly for travel. Instead you, or the TD agent, simply buys the ticket from any source (expedia, etc) on your TD card, then you convert points into dollars on your same card. For RBC, the agent buys the ticket for you using your points.
Second, RBC gives you 1 point / $1 spent, TD gives you 3 points / $1 spent. So TD is 3x BUT not in real value because 1 RBC point <> 1 TD point.
Let's take an example: Flight to Australia....
RBC Avion requires 100,000 points and is good for a flight up to $2000. Regardless of ticket price, it will cost 100,000 points
TD First Class: you must buy the ticket. $1500 to $2200. Say $1800. Conversion is $50 for each 10,000 points...so you need ($1800/$50 = 36 x 10,000 pts) 360,000 points.
Here's the kicker:
On all RBC ticket purchases using points, point DO NOT cover the taxes and charges. On this flight, those fees = roughly $800. You can convert more RBC points to cover the taxes & fees. By contrast, since you used REAL dollars to buy the TD version, taxes are already all paid. To compare apples to apples, convert $800 taxes into RBC points you need 80,000 more points (conversion is $1/100 pts…this is a good conversion rate btw). So now we are talking $180,000 (RBC) vs. $120,000 (TD).
TD is 33% cheaper.
This will vary somewhat (up or down) depending on price and distance of flights
Other things you need to know:
(A) if you use a TD agent to book your trip, they charge $30 (you can book it yourself on any method (expedia, etc).
(B) If you use a TD agent to book your ticket, you get 9x (yes, nine times) the points, not 3x
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