RBC AVION deceptive practices. Impossible customer service
by Longtime RBC client. on Mar 13, 2024
1 out of 5 stars
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It's farud. If you book directly from airline or get all-inclusive package directly from provider, you will save a lot more money. Also any change or cancellation will be a nightmare with Avion rewards even though you have paid extra for flexibility
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.
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Booked 8 return flights to New York in 2015 and had a great experience and wonderful trip.
Booked a return trip to Botswana Africa Toronto to London to Botswana it was the night the mayor of Toronto brought in the troops to clear the snow and had a great journey in 1998.
Booked a flight to Campbell River on Vancouver Island slight hiccup with the process of booking a person at Avion and I was unaware that because we were using a small community airline we needed to get a shuttle to the off-site Area of Vancouver airport everything worked out had a great family reunion.
Had to rebook a flight with AC through Avion. I spent an hour on hold. I got an agent who took the information or we thought including our cell number and gave authorization for credit card charges. Then the call terminated. Waited 15 min for a callback.... none... I call Avion, waited 40 min and got another agent who patiently managed to make the booking as the previous agent had done nothing to make the changes .. when we checked our Visa she had made two charges on our card .. that's a problem. Once we completed the transaction .. the supervisor for Avion through the agent said we needed to email her and send the credit card statement. I told her she failed to maintain proper oversight and we're gonna deal with RBC fraud to dispute the charges...
I booked a flight through Air Avion and Air Canada made a change to one leg of the flight which affected my connection time. Air Avion would not let me book an earlier flight to remedy the problem. I was locked in and all due to a flight change that was out of my control. Air Canada would not deal with me at all. The charge for changing one leg of the trip via Avion was $8000.00 to which I laughed as I thought it was a joke. It was not. I could have cancelled and rebooked the first class for that price. It’s a terrible service. I’ll get rid of my points and be done with this card.
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:
Please read before you decide to get this credit card. I used to be a huge advocate for Avion and their rewards programs. Now it's a disaster. Avion was great for booking vacations and especially all-inclusive, they had great rates, and you could search all the same destinations as you could on any other travel site. THAT IS NO MORE. Avion decided to use an archaic way of doing things. Now you have to call some random number to book and you can't search for any trips because they don't have a website that searches them for all-inclusive. Instead, you have to call some number and talk to someone who can give you suggestions. Well sorry, Avion but I want to see ALL the options and see pictures and look at reviews. I am canceling my Avion card because of this as it was the only good thing about this card. Avion went from the best travel card to the absolute worst.
We booked a hotel with fairly good reviews through Avion and upon arrival, the hotel was clearly not safe. We stayed 2 nights (late arrival and exhausted the first, and worked on alternate accommodations on the 2nd) and were on hold with the Avion rep for over 2 hours until he eventually said he was "authorized" to phone the hotel to cancel our reservation. This did not happen. We left the next day (the front desk said that the only one who could cancel the reservation was the booking agent - Avion) assuming that the Avion rep had followed through and made the call. Nope. 6 months trying to resolve. I phoned twice to Avion and was sent an email not to contact. Not that I was rude - they just didn't want to have to respond with updates. Finally, got an email saying that no refund would be forthcoming. What??!! From this point on, the message is on repeat. We are sorry... You are a valued customer... We hope we can be of service to you again... Absolute garbage. Will be cutting up this card today.
I'm guessing RBC had a lot of upset customers after the pandemic cancelled many vacations and has recently sub-contracted all all-inclusive and cruise bookings to Expedia Cruises.
The problem is, the wonderful online booking option they previously had has now been replaced with a new process whereby you have to call/visit an actual travel agent to make your booking. This is bad on so many levels.
For one, before I could book a trip within 30 minutes. Now, it has taken me 1.5 weeks, and still no luck booking a trip. The travel agents don't answer the phone when they get you a quote that you confirm unless they execute right away the price/availability changes. They do not work evenings or weekends. And, when you need help they are generally not available.
I have 4.5 million points ($45k worth), and the only reason I got an RBC visa was for travel. Now that I can't even book a trip, what am I supposed to do? I am beyond frustrated with Expedia Cruises, and no one at RBC is able to help as they just deflect all responsibility to Expedia now.
Apparently, this change is new and just went live a month or two ago, so hopefully, someone at RBC reads this and quickly makes a pivot back to the old online booking software. NO ONE in 2022 should be forced to book a vacation with a travel agent. It is not 1995.
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:
I tried booking a flight from YHM to YHX. Both these airports are not on the Avion reservation site. It also does not recognize airlines.
Avion claim to fame. Any Flight Anytime... I tried contacting someone. To ask why all they did was transfer me to representatives. Who obviously can not help. They would not provide me with any management numbers that could look into this. Over 2 hours on the phone with no solution! Totally 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.