In our world of Travel Hacking, maximizing the number of points or miles you earn whilepayingn the least amount of money is always our goal. Many programs make that difficult for you by imposing strict churnig restrictions such as American Express’ “once in a lifetime” rule for earning sign up bonuses. There still are cards out there that you can churn easily, like the MBNA Alaska World Elite card, but did you know you can switch credit cards with RBC? In fact, it’s one of the best perks of using RBC’s suite of credit cards.
Many of the popular RBC credit cards offer a decent amount of sign up bonuses which you’ll definitely want to take advantage of!
I’ve personally done the RBC credit card product switch and you can check out my video below where I talk about my experience going through the product switch process.
The Four Benefits
Benefit #1: You can double dip or triple dip on the welcome bonus points/miles
If you sign up for the RBC British Airways credit card, you will receive 40,000 Avios after getting the welcome bonus points and meeting the minimum spend requirements.
You can then do a product switch to say an RBC Avion, and now you have another 15,000 Avion points, which can be transferred to British Airways Avios, American Airlines, or Cathay Pacific’s Asia Miles.
For the a similar amount of annual fee, you have now collected 55,000 Miles instead of just 40,000.
From here, you have the option of product switching again to earn more points or find an RBC credit card with no annual fee to “park” yourself in the meantime and get the annual fee you paid for the second credit card pro-rated.
This leads us to…
Benefit #2: Your annual fee is pro-rated
After completing the RBC product switch, an RBC representative will refund you the remainder of the annual fee you paid. Let’s say you decided to keep the RBC British Airways VISA for 3 months after the switch. You can actually get a refund for the other nine months that you did not hold the card. Essentially, you are only paying $41.25 for the annual fee instead of $165.
They’ll then charge you an annual fee on your next card which is most likely going to be $120. After getting the welcome bonus points and holding the card for three months, if you do another product switch, they will refund you the remaining nine months which means you only paid $30.
This brings the total annual fee you paid to $71.25 if you’ve gotten the British Airways Avios and RBC Avion VISA. Keep in mind; you’ve also earned 55,000 miles in the process and that’s a pretty awesome deal if you ask me!
Benefit #3: Test drive other frequent flyer programs
You don’t really know how useful a frequent flyer program is until you’ve tried it. One of the best way to test drive several different frequent flyer programs without paying full price for the credit card’s annual fee is to use the RBC product switch method.
This will allow you to test drive some of the frequent flyer programs that are partnered with RBC such as:
- British Airways Avios
- WestJet Rewards
- Cathay Pacific Asia Miles
- American Airlines (Transfer from RBC Avion)
Benefit #4: Prevent your credit score from dropping
Every time you sign up for a new credit card, your credit score will drop a few points (if you don’t know the ins and outs of credit and your credit score, take a quick read here). However, when you do a product switch, RBC uses the credit score from the credit check they used to approve you for your original card. For every new credit card you get, your credit score will be unaffected.
Conclusion
Frequent flyer programs such as British Airways Avios is one of the best in Canada and I highly recommend you getting the RBC British Airways Avios card and/or the RBC Avion card. I personally used them when I travelled around the world for a year (check out my points and miles redemption breakdown in this blog post here), and it was a life saver when I travelled through South America, Asia, and parts of Europe.
Just remember that the minimum spend bonus points is only valid for the first card you apply for so you’ll only qualify for the welcome bonus points for your consecutive credit cards.
Good luck in your application and reap the benefit of this RBC product switch strategy!