penfed visa cash rewards card

[brewer12345]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sarah in SC I'm finally quitting the Penfed card. The devalued rewards was the final straw. I have lots of cards, but I've had 4 times in the last few years that fraud caused my card to be cancelled. And I had trouble viewing old transactions on the closed cards. In the same time period, only one of my Chase cards was compromised. And I think that was at the website of onesimcard, which was my only recent use of it.

Any obvious candidates for successor? I already have the Chase Sapphire.

[Sarah in SC]

I will likely get the cash rewards card, thanks for pointing out the difference, REW.

Brew, I've been using the Chase a lot, especially when we were traveling, but I also picked up the Marriott and the ICG cards just before we left so I could book a few free hotel rooms while we were away. Nothing like a decent hotel stay when you've been wild camping for a week!

I also just got the Amex deal for Starwood Preferred Guest, but I'm remembering it is kind of a pain to do the required spends on Amex rather than Visa cards.

I think that with DH quitting work (no cover story lol) our fuel costs will go down by 2/3rds, making that less of a big deal for rewards for us.

Long story short , I think the sapphire will remain our steady eddy. Our next trip will be in May, just North America this time, so I will be looking at what might be good for fuel during the trip, and also trying to accumulate points between now and then for hotel stays when we aren't camping.

[tulak]

Sarah, do you pay the annual fee on the Sapphire card?

I have problems paying an annual fee. I signed up for the Sapphire card before our last trip, but I figure I'll cancel it before the year is up. I'm also disappointed with Penfed's change for visa prepaid cards. Thanks to calmloki, I was able to cash out my points before the change and since then I've been using the Sapphire card. I might keep the Penfed card for my recurring payments, just because I'm lazy to change them to another card.

I'm thinking about applying for the Fidelity AMEX card, which is 2% cash back. Amex isn't accept everywhere, but I think it would work for a majority of our purchases.

[mickj]

If you apply for the cash rewards card it is now only 3% cash back on gas.

[marc515]

From what I'm reading, the 5% cash back is only through Dec 2013; after that it will be 3%

[REWahoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by marc515 From what I'm reading, the 5% cash back is only through Dec 2013; after that it will be 3%

For an existing card holder who has one of their other "qualifying account services", the 5% cash back on fuel purchased at the pump will continue.

[marc515]

Quote:

Originally Posted by REWahoo For an existing card holder who has one of their other "qualifying account services", the 5% cash back on fuel purchased at the pump will continue.

Thanks!

[marc515]

Since Penfed is going down the tubes with their CD rates and Credit Card Rewards, who offers the best rewards programs?

Aslo, since the Penfed rewards points have been devalued, I can only guess other Credit Cards will follow.

[RunningBum]

Quote:

Originally Posted by REWahoo For an existing card holder who has one of their other "qualifying account services", the 5% cash back on fuel purchased at the pump will continue.

Man, I had a cash back card, and they switched me to the rewards card, and now they've devalued the rewards a bit, so I suppose I can't go back to the cash card and get 5%. I gotta sit down and look at all this but I'm on vacation this week so it's not something I want to deal with right now.

[braumeister]

Alas, they were a bit misleading in their promotions for the newer point rewards card. I simply ignored them, because I was happy with the cash rewards card, but I think they got a lot of members to switch.

The feature of getting your rewards in cash in the same month you do the card spending is pretty great. I keep the card for that, although these days I use it almost exclusively for gas purchases.

[KM]

I caved and opened a money market certificate with them today for $1K. Same interest I get where it is sitting now, so I guess it doesn't matter.

I looked around yesterday and couldn't find anything else that would give me the 5% on gas year-round (which adds up quite a bit for us when traveling) - not to mention I just switched my PenFed card to one with a "chip" (for international travel).....

[REWahoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by KM I caved and opened a money market certificate with them today for $1K. Same interest I get where it is sitting now, so I guess it doesn't matter.

I'm planning on doing the same and had the same thought process - I'm not making anything on that money today, so nothing lost.

Then I realized based on my fuel (gas and diesel) expenses the $1,000 in a MM certificate at Penfed will result in ~$300 per year in cash back savings. Even though numbers is hard for me, even I can see that works out to a 30% return on my investment.

Maybe I should put in more than $1,000...

[ChadR]

If I'm fully paperless where do I look to find the notification that they will start charging a fee if I don't have a linked account? Where do they show the rewards is being reduced from 5% to 3%?

When I look here:
https://online9.penfed.org/PenFedOnl...tes/Loans.aspx

I see that it still lists no annual fee and cash back of 5% on gas.

This is my goto card for gas. used to be my go to card for all purchases until the eliminated the grocery category and dropped everything else from 1% to 0.25%. Now the Amex fidelity 2% card is my everyday goto card.

[omni550]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChadR If I'm fully paperless where do I look to find the notification that they will start charging a fee if I don't have a linked account? Where do they show the rewards is being reduced from 5% to 3%? When I look here: https://online9.penfed.org/PenFedOnl...tes/Loans.aspx I see that it still lists no annual fee and cash back of 5% on gas. This is my goto card for gas. used to be my go to card for all purchases until the eliminated the grocery category and dropped everything else from 1% to 0.25%. Now the Amex fidelity 2% card is my everyday goto card.

The notice of the annual fee unless using a linked service was sent to me via email and also by snail mail (USPS).



Their site shows reductions in the rewards and effective dates:

https://www.penfed.org/Platinum-Cash-Rewards/

https://www.penfed.org/visasignaturepoints/


omni

[marc515]

1. Have any of the other CC's "devalued" their rewards points? Since the CC is a VISA, I would think if one has done it, others have/will follow.

2. The PENFED rewards card still isn't too bad with 5/Gas, and 3/Supermarkets; the 1/Other isn't too great.

[brewer12345]

I think all of this says I will be using a different card than my points pen fed card after the end of the year.

[gauss]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawkeyeNFO Plenty of better cards out there these days. 5% gas rebates? Sallie Mae Card does that, as well as at grocery stores. No fee, no rqmt to have another account. Plenty of Citibank cards do the same thing. I like PenFed, but their credit card has never been the best one.

Hawkeye,

Have you used the Sallie Mae card first hand? The reason that I ask is that I am curious about their online system. The current Penfed system does not show charges/authorizations in real time, but rather shows them the day after they post.

Chase Saphire, on the other hand, will immediately show card activity as pending charges are created. This is very useful for Internet purchases to confirm that your order went through when there is a question and something is time critical (ie trying to order World Series tickets on a stressed website).

Thanks for any information that you can provide.

Thanks
-gauss

[HawkeyeNFO]

Yes, been using it for several months. Pending charges show up online, and once they are actually posted, your points/rebates show up as well, no waiting for the statement. I like it, as we never spend more than about $175 or so monthly on gas. We usually go over the $250 cap on groceries though, but the two categories are separate. Getting 5% back on bookstore purchases is good too (iow, all Amazon purchases). However, ..............

[HawkeyeNFO]

With all the sign up bonuses available these days, I don't worry about getting 5% back on stuff. It's much more profitable to hit minimum spending on a card to get 50,000 airline miles, then move on to another card.

[REWahoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawkeyeNFO With all the sign up bonuses available these days, I don't worry about getting 5% back on stuff. It's much more profitable to hit minimum spending on a card to get 50,000 airline miles, then move on to another card.

And then there are those of us who could care less about airline miles...