RBC WestJet MASTERCARD Consumer Reviews

Unless you really enjoy bad advice and significant hassles, stay away from the RBC Westjet Mastercard. Unfortunately, we really enjoy Westjet and the companion flight program. We use the cards a lot for daily purchases and travel and pay our balance monthly. We're very good clients. The extreme challenges come with the Royal Bank side of things. Twice we have been disrupted by RBC incompetence and bad advice. My wife and I have each had a card on the same account for a few years now. The issue surfaced when I requested a replacement card because we were headed to Iceland and my magnetic strip was not working due to multiple scratches, worn card etc. I received the card in plenty of time and figured everything was good. The first indication of challenges was when she went to use her card and discovered that it had been cancelled. RBC staff admitted they had made a mistake that "it never should have happened" and reinstated her card. But when we went to use mine, we discovered that the tap or chip didn't work and I had to sign for every transaction. After visits to the branch and calls to the RBC help desk, it wasn't resolved. Lots of apologies, however. So I figured I'd bite the bullet and keep on signing. A minor hassle but doable. Then round two hit. We recently started up a small home-based business and went to add a 3rd card to the account. We called RBC and they advised us to fill in an application, which we did. We made it very clear to the RBC folks that the reason we wanted this 3rd card was that so we could run our business expenses on a dedicated card. Simplify the accounting or so I thought. Turns out, again by their own admission, we got some bad advice. They cancelled my other card because we can't have 2 co-applicants and 3 cards on the same account. We are advised that there's no way that it can be reinstated. So now all of our regular monthly payments that we have scheduled on that previous card are going to bounce, meaning that we now have to go through the hassle of notifying all of the suppliers that we used that card for of the new card. More apologies from RBC for the bad advice, but somehow that just doesn't seem good enough the second time. I'm pretty sure we're now going to drop the Westjet RBC Mastercard through no fault of Westjet's. Clearly, the universe is telling us not to deal with Royal Bank. I can only hope that Westjet will see the light and move over to a different card company. I can't imagine that we're the only two people in the entire RBC client list that have had these sorts of experiences. There is absolutely no way I can ever be convinced to become a larger client of the Royal Bank for our business and personal finances. So if you like receiving bad advice and enduring hassles caused due to incompetence, go ahead and choose the Westjet RBC Mastercard. My advice, however, is that it's not worth it. Most unfortunate.