What is your opinion of PenFed?

[Gearhead Jim]

Thanks, brewer!

[Dawg54]

Originally Posted by ESRBob

Dawgm
I did the same thing -- had the CD first, then got the Visa card in a snap. It did take me awhile to get approval for a higher credit line, though. Here's why I needed it -- a classic case of Penfed is different":

I always pay my card off in full (well almost always -- I was leaving Citi in a huff because of their late fees for being a day late, but in principal I always pay it off)

Therefore I figured I needed a credit line of one average month plus some of the next month, plus a cushion.

Got an over-limit call from Penfed soon after getting the card. Reason? They have such a long billing cycle (i.e. extra time with free credit) that I was running up more than two full months of charges before they withdrew the money from my account to cover the bill from two months prior.

Thus, the need for a bigger credit limit. Classic Penfed... Still, no late fees (because I have them debit my account) and no finance charges, plus 1.25% cash back and two months of free credit = one happy customer...

Now with the 1.25% back we charge virtually everything in sight, so need a little more which they promptly gave.

I originally applied for a 5k credit limit in June. Half the limit I have on my GM card so I thought it would be easy to obtained. Still not sure why they asked for all the tax return info as I acquired 100k worth of cd's in January.(if that's one of the major factors they use) I never did send them any tax return info. Maybe the person reviewing my application didn't check to see I had the cd's already established.

Oh well, at least they got it right. Wound up with a credit limit of $16,200. The cash back feature will be nice. Can't see me every needing that much but nice to have in case I take a long trip overseas one day.

[OAG]

BTW the Cash Back at PENFED is 5% on Gasoline and 1.25% on everything else. Cannot figure out why one would have the problems getting a VISA card from them (maybe SE Income?). Baring bad credit can't figure. I got $25K limit and just filled out the on-line application. Of course maybe because we have been members since 1975 it may have had something to do with it?

[Dawg54]

Originally Posted by R Wood

Cannot figure out why one would have the problems getting a VISA card from them (maybe SE Income?). Baring bad credit can't figure. I got $25K limit and just filled out the on-line application. Of course maybe because we have been members since 1975 it may have had something to do with it?

Could be. I am a brand new customer but my credit report should have been ok. My only 2 mortgages were paid off early and never late on a monthly payment.

If I had applied last year when I was still working, I would have had a nice income to report which probably would have helped the process. Early retired, with only investment income to report, could have hurt. But again, it worked out in the end.