RBC AVION deceptive practices. Impossible customer service
by Longtime RBC client. on Mar 13, 2024
1 out of 5 stars
Earn 2% Money-Back Rewards on purchases in two 2% Money-Back Categories of your choice, and 0.50% Money-Back Rewards on all other purchases with Tangerine World Mastercard®.
This card recently changed the verification process to make purchases online, and this change has rendered this card unusable for me. I have called numerous times to try and find a solution, offered many solutions of my own, and never once yelled or got angry with the reps. But there's clearly now a note or warning on my file, because the last time I called to ask about another potential solution, the rep was unbelievably rude to me, time me there's "no solution" and hung up. That's me cancelling my account and taking my business elsewhere.
Absolutely the worst Customer Service compared to any other booking agency. They have “lost” all my travel credits, refused to address the issue, have no supervisor or management department, hang up on customers, refuse to adhere to their own policies. So frustrating and a waste of time and money. Shame on RBC for allowing this type of point system to exist.
Earn 2% Money-Back Rewards on purchases in two 2% Money-Back Categories of your choice, and 0.50% Money-Back Rewards on all other purchases with Tangerine World Mastercard.
What else will you get:
Booked an "all inclusive". Well everything was fine until the airline changed our departure date. It was at that point we found out "all inclusive" is far from. Apparently the fine print says that avion does not have to align the hotel date with your arrival. Noticed the flight change before anyone from that classless, unprofessional, unethical, horrid company notified us. We were told that we should have read the fine print (they were never going to inform us) and left us stranded with a senior and 2 children under 12 in a foreign country in the middle of the night with nowhere to go.
I am unable to book any travel with Avion points. This has been happening for a year. I even called customer service and they cannot book a flight with my points. All those points are wasted. DO NOT get this credit card. The scam is, they first hang up on you and pretend its a dropped call. The next scam is pretending they cannot book with your points. They offer a credit which is no where near the value of the points when used for travel. Total scam, I am surprised this has been allowed to continue for so long.
I have booked through Avion for at least 15 years. Since Covid it seems that the people answering their phones are simply order takers, not actual travel advisors. They don't understand the complexities of air tickets, routings, changes, cancellations etc. It's so frustrating that it requires about 10 calls to try and fix a simple schedule change, and even then there is no guarantee that it gets done. RBC - you are seriously annoying some of your best clients by not having properly trained advisors to deal with simple or complex requests. Even though I have almost 1 Million points I am very leery to use them because I don't have time to deal with Avion if there are any issues. I'm very tempted to change my credit card as this is not working. I've lost so much time and money on Avion airline bookings as it's easier to walk away than to keep calling, being put on hold, explaining the situation, on hold again, further discussing the issue, on hold again, and then being cut off. Even though the Avion person has my number I've never once had a call back after I've been cut off. This is unacceptable!
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This complaint regarding Avion comes after several attempts to use points and book flights over the past 18 months. In each instance, I chose to purchase my tickets directly from the airline instead of using Avion points. The reasons. Many flights that are available from the airlines are not made available through Avion. As a result, Avion booked flights have less connectivity, longer layover times and inconvenient scheduling. The next biggest issue has been the Surcharges on top of points usage for every flight option. Ironically, the surcharges themselves are often more expensive than booking tickets directly from the airline. That doesn't take into consideration the additional Avion points charged on top of those surcharges. Finally, my recent experience booking through Avions Expedia link has resulted in booking me into a hotel that on arrival had no rooms available. The error itself was frustrating but resolvable. Problem was, connecting with Expedia is impossible and their chatbot has very limited ability to resolve anything. Despite many efforts and long hours attempting to communicate with Expedia, it was necessary to charge back the credit card. Don't get me started on the customer service avoidance process that RBC uses to frustrate complaints. After multiple hours online and at least two hangup by RBC staff after being on hold, I was finally able to implement the charge back to Expedia. They never responded. In my sincere and experienced opinion, I suggest not signing on to RBC AVION. In fact, I suggest ditching them.