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I've been checking for a few months now, but the best I can find is 84.9% efficiency for a VISA prepaid card (58,900 points for $500) or 89.3% for a Bed Bath & Beyond card (2,800 points for $25). I'd like to use this thread to track the current specials and have folks post what gems them find here to help each other out. This way we can use our points most efficiently and don't have to all be monitoring their redemption site as carefully. Please only post deals in this thread that are better than 85% efficiency offered by the Visa prepaid card. Once again, to get us going, here are the current ones I find in priority order of points, please post other efficient ones as they are found: $25 Bed Bath & Beyond – 2,800 points – 89.3% $25 Outback Steakhouse – 2,800 points – 89.3% $25 Nike gift card – 2,800 points – 89.3% $25 Bass Pro Shops – 2,800 points – 89.3% $25 Home Depot – 2,900 points – 86.2% $25 Walgreens – 2,900 points – 86.2% $500 Visa Prepaid – 58,900 points – 84.9%

I 'm almost at 6 months with the Platinum Rewards Visa (my first card with them). When can you get your first CLI and is it automatic or do you have to ask for it? What happens when you click on the request CLI button on their credit card product page? I think that has always been there since I received the card but im not sure. Any insight from you Penfed veterans is greatly appreciated.

Looking to help a friend refinance a high balance mortgage at $550K 80% LTV in a county that goes up to $625K. Time horizon is about ten years before property is sold. May need non-occupying owner to sign the note also to get DTI ratios acceptable. Current note is presently in the non-occupying owner's name (brother of home occupant). I'm looking at PenFed and NFCU so far. PenFed offers a 5/5 at 2.875% and no origination fees with a 2% cap on adjustment and 43% DTI only needing a 680+ FICO score, however, all borrowers must reside in the house. I don't know as much about the NFCU rates, so far it appears they offer a 5/5 at 2.5% and 0.25% origination fee but the rate varies with your FICO score, still getting more info on this one. Other Credit Unions to consider? What about USAA, how good are their mortgage rates?

I've seen it posted throughout the forum, and Houston Lynne has it immortalized in her signature block. I've opened a Penfed savings account, but have not applied for any of their credit products yet. Is there anything I should be cautious about to avoid the "Pyramid Alert!" with Penfed? I do have several credit union accounts (NFCU - $30K, $10K, BECU - $8.5K, NASA - $30K) and zero balances. Any thoughts? (PM me if you are concerned about giving away the farm)

I opened up a Penfed checking account and I have this $500 thing added to my account even though I didn't app. Is this toy account going to report too and lower my AAOA? Please say no!

What should we do? The original approval was for $5k, I then called a couple of days later for recon and they approved it for $7k. However, our account screen is showing 2 different accounts and the cards that came in the mail today was that of the $5k account number. Do you think I will receive the other account number also? Should I call to try to have the accounts merged for a total of $12k? Or will they just shut one down if I make that request?

I attempted to open a credit line at PenFed with the intention of using the introductory balance transfer to pay off five delinquent student loans. Unfortunately the delinquencies have been reported to credit bureaus. My credit ratings were in the mid 700's prior to these reporting. My scores are now in the mid 500's range. As consequence, my credit application was declined. PenFed encouraged me to write a reconsideration letter explaining my scenario. A draft is below, please respond with any ideas or suggestions. Dear Sir or Madam, I applied for a PenFed credit card an April 3, 2014 and was declined due to the derogatory information on my credit report. I am a new college graduate and have only recently acquired a job. Being new to credit, I did not understand all the ramifications of my actions with regards to my student loans and thought I could wait until I was employed before beginning to paying them off. I've now learned that I should have applied for deferment but, now that these loans have defaulted, that is no longer an option. I want to pay these loans off, and would by the original terms, but these are now no longer available to me as they only want me to repay in full. While I could now afford the normal monthly payments, I cannot afford to pay them in full today. That is why I applied for a PenFed credit card, I am hoping to qualify and use your balance transfer offer of 4.99% for 48 months, because I know I could easily pay off these lone in full given three years to do so, in fact I think I might be able to pay them off in only 2 years! I understand your reluctance to lend to me as I have learned about my credit report and reviewed it and gotten my FICO score and see that I am now considered high risk because of these student loans. I feel like I am in a catch 22 because I had perfect credit before these delinquencies reported and continue to have great credit except for the fact of these student loans that I now want to pay off in a realistic payment schedule. Therefore, I am hoping PenFed will reconsider my application in light of my circumstances and allow me to open a credit card so that I may payoff these loans with a balance transfer. To aid you in your decision, I am enclosing my most recent two pay stubs to document my salary. Thank you for your thoughtful deliberations. Sincerely,

I found that my auto loan trade lines for me and my DW were showing a high balance below the current balance and I believe this was negatively impacting our FICO scores due to high utilization on an installment loan. As a rule of thumb, you want your installment loans to be below 90% utilization for better FICO scores where utilization is the current balance divided by the original loan amount. With PenFed, we added on extended warrantee protection and the loans were reporting a high balance of the original car's principal balance, but the current balance was higher than this due to the addition to the loan principal of the cost of the extended warrantee. This was giving us a term loan utilization higher than 100% which is detrimental to your FICO score. Therefore, I contacted PenFed by phone to correct the issue by phone and got no where, so I sent a dispute in writing documenting that the loan document I signed showed an amount borrowed that did not match what they were reporting as the high balance. They responded in writing that they were reporting correctly. I called up and said I wanted to escalate and was told they would have to refer the matter to their legal department for further review. Now a few months later they have changed their position and agreed there is an error writing to me: I also spoke with them by phone and they indicated that the issue affect all auto loans at PenFed, so I'm writing here to alert every one in case they added any products like GAP protection or extended warrantee that increased their loan amount beyond the car purchase price so that they can make sure the correction applies to them as well.

AAOA: About 3.9 years Latest DCU Fico: 749 Multiple cards $10k+ Clean EQ Report 2 Inqs - Both from Feb 2013. They're stickies from Credco. BUT... (there's always a but)... I have a new-ish auto loan and 3 new cards from Oct - Nov. Opened my CareCredit, Chase SW RR and SSFCU Visa. Thoughts?

Never would've thought this day would come if you were to ask me a few years back when I was a mess of damaged credit and low scores. But today... Was declined by PenFed 3 months ago for...pretty much everything under the sun. Had a 729 EQ FICO, 3.8yr AAOA, 22 INQs, and 22% util. My approval today is with a 749 EQ FICO, 2.2yr AAOA, 0 INQs, and 8% util. I know that the next step may still require proof of income and stuff, but I didn't lie on the app so I don't foresee any issues. I do potentially foresee issues with AmEx or Barclays since this is my 8th new trade line in 6 months. We'll see though...crossing fingers for no AA. My DTI/DTC is good and my reports are clean nowadays so hopefully they don't mind.

If you have a BK will Penfed still ( possibly ) offer a pre-approval? thanks in advance.

My DW just got a pre-approval credit card at PenFed that was applied for on 4/1/13 is now processed and showing up on her online account at PenFed as of 4/3/13. How quickly will this appear on her credit report? Does PenFed report all accounts on the same day or do they report on your statement closing date? If based on your statement close, when would the close be for an account just opened?

I know of PenFed has their quarterly ones, and I just got a car loan pre-approval when I logged into Partners FCU. What other ones are there out there and where do you find them on the website and do they have a schedule like Pentagon FCU?

I'm wondering how PenFed treats advance payments on an auto loan? If I got one, I'd like to pay down the first 6 months of payments up front to reduce my utilization on the new loan to something not so near 100%, however, if I did this, I would want to skip my monthly payment for six months to catch up and still have my final payment date when the loan is paid off basically unchanged. How does PenFed apply extra payments? Is there anyway to pay your monthly payments in advance and if so, how far in advance will this work? I had done something like this with Partners FCU on my auto loan and it worked for about 3 or 4 months, but then they sent a nasty letter about paying monthly and ultimately they changed my next payment due date to be next month even though it previously had stated several months out in the future.

I'm considering getting my auto loan through PenFed credit union and wonder if they use an enhanced auto FICO score if you are applying for an auto loan from them?

So here is my situation: I have about $11,500 on my Bankamericard Mastercard at 9.9%. I did a BTF about 2 years ago and have paid a good chunk of that, but have incurred some purchases over the last year that were necessary when I didn't have excess cash. At any rate, I applied for both the PenFed Promise Visa and NFCU Platinum Visa because they both have no fees and good rates. I was approved for both! The PenFed Promise was given a limit of $12K and the NFCU Platinum Visa was granted a limit of $14K, which brings my total available credit to $76K. However, NFCU is the one that is going to process my large BT because they asked for the info while doing the app. My CONCERN is that if I transfer an $11,500 balance to a $14K card that my score will take a hit. My overall credit card utilization will be low, but this card will be at 80% of its limit. What are you all's thoughts??? Will my score be affected how I think it will be? Or no?