RBC is offering a 30% transfer bonus to British Airways’ Executive Club, which is the same offer from just over a year ago. Conversion bonuses are an amazing way to boost your accounts without any extra cost or effort (aside from having the points readily available).
Promotion alert!
RBC is offering a 30% transfer bonus to British Airways’ Executive Club. The last time that RBC offered a bonus to Executive Club was back in November of 2019, albeit for 50%.
See also: COVID-19 Updates for our most up-to-date tracking.
Things have evolved quite a bit since March 2020 when the coronavirus lockdowns hit the travel industry. As time went on, airline and hotel program made adjustments to stay afloat. They also tried to make things more generous for customers, while trying to juggle their balance sheet.
Many people would argue that airlines would get government bailouts anyway, so all they really need to do is sit back and relax. Whether true or not, today’s post focuses on extensions given to member account balances. Several of those extensions have now expired, while some programs made some more permanent changes to their expiry policies.
Due to the current coronavirus pandemic, airline and hotel loyalty programs have paused/extended expiry policies to their miles and points. Today’s post is a current snapshot of the state of these programs.
Please note that we ongoingly update our COVID-19 updates page as well for most up-to-date information.
Airlines and hotels have been putting together some positive videos together on YouTube, so I wanted to give them a shout out for putting these videos together. The videos range from: Thank you message Giving passengers assurance message (e.g. being…
Loyalty programs across the board have implemented temporary solutions to deal with any COVID-19 related matters. Below is a list of hyperlinks to useful information. I also included a small blurb for each company that may be more commonly relevant.
I tried to include companies more relevant to Canadians, but please let us know in the comment section below if you see any other links that we can add to the list (in alphabetical order).
Royal Bank is offering a generous 50% transfer bonus to British Airways Executive Club between November 1, 2019 to December 15, 2019.
There is a 10,000 RBC Rewards points minimum requirement at a 1 to 1 transfer ratio. But it is increments of 1 point thereafter. So 10,000 points will get you 15,000 Avios (instead of 10,000).
There are two transfer bonuses in Canada that are ending this month to look out for.35% AeroplanThe first one is Air Canada’s 35% Aeroplan transfer bonus when you convert Marriott Bonvoy points to Aeroplan miles with an added bonus. Below is the earning potential, depending on whether you take advantage of the additional 5,000 transfer bonus. This offer ends on June 26, 2019.
For Canadians, after Air Canada’s frequent flyer program, Aeroplan, I would say, British Airways’ Executive Club Avios miles are the most accessible to earn through is various credit card partners. There years where I actually earn more Avios and Aeroplan miles depending on what offers are available.
Expiry Policy
As usual, let’s start with their expiry policy, as this is generally a deal breaker for me on whether I will put more energy towards a specific program. Fortunately, Executive Club offers one of the best frequent flyer program expiry policies. Your miles stay active so long as you have an activity once every 36 months. This is much more generous than the 12 or 24 months that we generally see with other programs.
In Canada, after Aeroplan, I would say, British Airways’ Executive Club Avios are the easiest miles to collect without flying. Canadian financial institutions offer a wide range of options to earn Avios. Personally I have an Executive Club account and I rack up most of my Avois through transfer partners and taking advantage of transfer bonuses (see below).