Jennifer Strang, a Vancouver woman, didn't expect to lose $18,000 as she booked her dream vacation to Europe in April 2022 and planned to visit several countries with her children that summer.
According to Daily Hive, Strong booked the trip using her RBC **ion tr**el points. She also upgraded to the RBC **ion Infinite Visa before her trip. She said she got the card because she had insurance. Strong set off in late June 2022 and everything was going well until July 12, when she found out that her flights for the remainder of her flight were cancelled due to a Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) strike in July 2022. She was in Athens at the time, and had planned to travel to Iceland and Oslo before returning home to Vancouver. 
She received an email from the airline saying she had to rebook her flight or cancel it. But because she booked through Royal Bank of Canada's (RBC) rewards program, they were technically considered her "travel agent". "I tried to give RBC a **, but it didn't work," she said. Strong believes that her RBC **ion Infinite Visa can provide her with protection against flight cancellations. She called RBC's insurer, Allianz, and contacted a representative who assured her that she could file a claim under the heading "$5,000 per person on the trip." "Since you're already on a trip, you can claim trip interruption compensation," Strong explained. Strong breathed a sigh of relief that she would be reimbursed for about $12,000 for travel expenses, including airfare and accommodation for herself and her children, as she was flying with her children. and that the representative told her that the claim file had been set up for her and that she only needed to keep all receipts and submit the claim when she returned to Vancouver. "I was a little hesitant and she kept reassuring me. Finally, after a few hours on end, I hung up on her **. We booked a flight. I booked my tour in advance;I'm ready for everything. Strong said she rebooked everything with her own credit. Daily Hive reviewed the ** records between Strong and Allianz representatives and confirmed that Strong was told she could file a claim after returning from her trip. Strong continued on vacation, and when she returned home, she filed a claim as instructed by an Allianz representative. But the January 2023 reply from the RBC Insurance Company of Canada surprised her. Strong was told that her claim was invalid and that she would not receive a penny due to her cancellations of flights and reservations. After more than a year of exhausting back-and-forth correspondence with RBC and Allianz, the vacationer has not been compensated. She was confused, frustrated, and stressed that Allianz representatives had told her that she could be compensated for the cancellations caused by the strike. Strong also claimed that the representative withdrew the portion of the policy that said her situation fell under a "flight disruption" that could be claimed. Determined to get an answer, she filed another claim through Allianz, but was denied. Since then, she has complained to different departments of the RBC to no avail. In June 2023, she referred the matter to the Office of the Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments (OBSI). They replied that RBC had done due diligence and that they were ......Didn't do anything wrong," Strong said. 
Strong said the only initial compensation offered by RBC was 35,000 **ion points, but she used about 200,000 points to book the trip. She said they also came up with another "ridiculous" form of compensation by converting her remaining points into cash to pay for her ticket. After months of trying to find answers, Strong estimated that the entire ordeal had cost her nearly $18,000, which included obtaining professional advice on how to proceed with the RBC, as well as the interest accrued on her line of credit, as well as the original cost of rebooking flights and accommodations. But she wasn't ready to give up the fight. Last November, Allianz said it would settle with Strong as an "exceptional gesture of goodwill" and provided her with 9,380 after acknowledging that its representatives had provided "misleading information" during their initial call in the summer of 202291 yuan. But Strong wasn't happy with the amount. In response to inquiries from **, Royal Bank of Canada only said that Allianz is currently working on Strong's case.