Pentagon Federal Credit Union Data Share

[fltireguy]

Interesting thing here (see my post in approvals for my Power Cash Rewards Visa).  It seems that they may have to manually take a BK flag off of your profile after a BK ages off of your EQ. I was denied for Inq and BK, even though my BK was NOT showing on a fresh HP from last night for the app. When the rep called me back on the survey, (in the whole 20 minutes since I hit send on the survey), they said that there was an error on THEIR part, and, something to the effect that it was coded onto my profile, and the issue was now resolved. They agreed the BK did not exist at this point...

So, the theory of joining with a dirty EQ file may hold some merit, in that you will never see the quarterly offers if you joined with a BK showing....  

ANy input at all on this?

[masscredit]

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@Tazman81 wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:
Seeing all the BT talk leads me to a question. I just got my most recent statement that shows a 0% BT offer. Does PenFed do what Comenity does and charge interest immediately on any other purchases while a BT is active?

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Yes, if you do a balance transfer at the 0% rate, and then make a purchase, you immediately accrue interest on what you purchased, forgoing the purchase grace period.  I confirmed this with a loan officer a while back while having a conversation with her, and it's also in their card agreement (pasted below).  I recommend if you are going to use the card for the BT offer, just do the BT and nothing else until you get it paid off.

(C) BALANCE TRANSFERS. Balance transfers are treated as cash advances. There is no grace period for payments on balance transfers. If you transfer a balance from another financial institution to us, you will immediately incur finance charges at the regular or promotional APR available at the time of the balance transfer and on purchases at the purchase APR. For instance if you transfer $1,000 at a promotional rate of 0% APR and then make a purchase of $200, you will immediately accrue finance charges at the purchase rate, forgoing the grace period. To avoid finance charges on new purchases after you transfer a balance, you must pay all balances on your account including any balances that you transfer in full by the due date.

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I'm reading the above two ways - 

If you do a BT then make a regular purchase, you will immediately accrure finance charges at the purchase rate, forgoing the grace period - There is usually a grace period between making a purchase (that $200 example) and when the payment is due.  So, new statement starts on July 1st. A person buys something for $200.00. He/she can let that ride until the statement closes at the end of the month then pay it by the due date which might be August 25th. There usually wouldn't be any interest.  Am I reading this right with thinking if that person take advantage of a 0% BT offer then makes that $200.00 purchases, he/she will have to pay interest from the purchase date to the date when the payment is made (August 25th)? 

To avoid finance charges on new purchases after you transfer a balance, you must pay all balances on your account including any balances that you transfer in full by the due date. - This part makes it sound like everything would happen like usual (7 week grace period).

I have to be clear with this answer because I took advantage of their 0% BT offer and have been giving the card a LOT of use. It's become my primary card. New purchases will be paid off before the statement due date next month so there usually wouldn't be any interest, I'd hate to be surprised by finance charges that I didn't expect. 

[Anonymous]

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@masscredit wrote:

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@Tazman81 wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:
Seeing all the BT talk leads me to a question. I just got my most recent statement that shows a 0% BT offer. Does PenFed do what Comenity does and charge interest immediately on any other purchases while a BT is active?

---

Yes, if you do a balance transfer at the 0% rate, and then make a purchase, you immediately accrue interest on what you purchased, forgoing the purchase grace period.  I confirmed this with a loan officer a while back while having a conversation with her, and it's also in their card agreement (pasted below).  I recommend if you are going to use the card for the BT offer, just do the BT and nothing else until you get it paid off.

(C) BALANCE TRANSFERS. Balance transfers are treated as cash advances. There is no grace period for payments on balance transfers. If you transfer a balance from another financial institution to us, you will immediately incur finance charges at the regular or promotional APR available at the time of the balance transfer and on purchases at the purchase APR. For instance if you transfer $1,000 at a promotional rate of 0% APR and then make a purchase of $200, you will immediately accrue finance charges at the purchase rate, forgoing the grace period. To avoid finance charges on new purchases after you transfer a balance, you must pay all balances on your account including any balances that you transfer in full by the due date.

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I'm reading the above two ways - 

If you do a BT then make a regular purchase, you will immediately accrure finance charges at the purchase rate, forgoing the grace period - There is usually a grace period between making a purchase (that $200 example) and when the payment is due.  So, new statement starts on July 1st. A person buys something for $200.00. He/she can let that ride until the statement closes at the end of the month then pay it by the due date which might be August 25th. There usually wouldn't be any interest.  Am I reading this right with thinking if that person take advantage of a 0% BT offer then makes that $200.00 purchases, he/she will have to pay interest from the purchase date to the date when the payment is made (August 25th)? 

To avoid finance charges on new purchases after you transfer a balance, you must pay all balances on your account including any balances that you transfer in full by the due date. - This part makes it sound like everything would happen like usual (7 week grace period).

I have to be clear with this answer because I took advantage of their 0% BT offer and have been giving the card a LOT of use. It's become my primary card. New purchases will be paid off before the statement due date next month so there usually wouldn't be any interest, I'd hate to be surprised by finance charges that I didn't expect. 

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This is not true. Interest will accrue from the transaction post date if you have purchases that post after the BT has posted. If you make a charge to a card that has a BT on it, any and all payments, regardless of timing of said payments, will go towards the lowest APR balance first. Therefore, if you have a 2000 BT and make 500 worth of purchases, you *will be charged* interest on that 500 new purchases balance, 

It's all in the T&C of the BT... 

[DaveInAZ]

@masscredit wrote:

I'm reading the above two ways - 

If you do a BT then make a regular purchase, you will immediately accrure finance charges at the purchase rate, forgoing the grace period - There is usually a grace period between making a purchase (that $200 example) and when the payment is due.  So, new statement starts on July 1st. A person buys something for $200.00. He/she can let that ride until the statement closes at the end of the month then pay it by the due date which might be August 25th. There usually wouldn't be any interest.  Am I reading this right with thinking if that person take advantage of a 0% BT offer then makes that $200.00 purchases, he/she will have to pay interest from the purchase date to the date when the payment is made (August 25th)? 

 - Yes

To avoid finance charges on new purchases after you transfer a balance, you must pay all balances on your account including any balances that you transfer in full by the due date. - This part makes it sound like everything would happen like usual (7 week grace period).

I have to be clear with this answer because I took advantage of their 0% BT offer and have been giving the card a LOT of use. It's become my primary card. New purchases will be paid off before the statement due date next month so there usually wouldn't be any interest, I'd hate to be surprised by finance charges that I didn't expect. 

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mass - Most CCs are this way, if you take a BT offer you loose your grace period to PIF any new purchases by the due date without incurring any interest. Instead, any purchase you make is charged interest from the date it posts on the account. If you read through all the fine print in the BT offer it explains this to you.  If you do a BT, put the card away in a sock drawer and do not use it.

Discover also does it this way, which is why I throw away their frequent BT offers - I use the card for their 5% rewards category. One exception is Capital One, when you have a BT they give you an "Interest Saver" payment option - the minimum payment on the BT + amount of any new purchases. If you make that payment (or higher payment) you pay no interest, which is why Cap One is the only BT offer I use. But still, if I do a BT offer I SD the card, you need to pay the BT off by the end of 0% or low interest and it's much easier to budget by dividing the BT by the # of months of the offer and pay at least that much every month.

[masscredit]

I'm used to the way Cap 1 does it. Can pay the new purchases with no interest and also pay towards the BT amount. I guess I'll be paying interest on my recent purchases until the BT is paid off?  Time to sock drawer the card. 

[rebound2014]

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@DaveInAZ wrote:

One exception is Capital One, when you have a BT they give you an "Interest Saver" payment option - the minimum payment on the BT + amount of any new purchases. If you make that payment (or higher payment) you pay no interest, which is why Cap One is the only BT offer I use. 

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Yeah... ummm... that's what I thought too until just a couple of weeks ago.

I made the mistake of accepting an 0%, 18 mos, 2% BT Fee offer on my Venture last November WHILE still carrying a regular purchase balance (I'd never done a BT before and I learned the hard way)... in February I learned from a CSR how they allocate those payments (and do not allow you to reallocate -- at least Synchrony allowed me to do such on my Lowe's card)... So I made it my mission to get that purchase balance paid off and I never could seem to do it. I can't tell you how many chats I have saved on my desktop and how many times I combed over the statements comparing figures and various balances from month to month. Finally, in June I said screw it.. despite having a year left on that promo balance I paid it all off after my statement (18th of the month). 

In the interest of dealing with funky computer algorithms, I intentionally broke this up into 3 payments between June 18th (statement) and July 14th (Due Date). The first was paying that "interest saver payment" so that there was NO confusion. Then I paid the remaining balance a couple of days later. Since they had been ticking me off with their "Average Monthly Payment is too low" BS for the past 7-8 months of eligibility for CLI, I put a couple of small charges on there because I interpretted this as meaning "your average monthly spend, aka Zero, has been too low"... so I let those post and then on the due date I paid THAT balance off as well. Guess what??  My statement cuts and instead of a $0 balance (the current balance) there's a $38 balance --- lag interest. WTH??  How do you pay the interest saver payment, remaining promo balance AND current cycle charges off and still have lagging interest. I always use chat so I have a transcript of what the CSR tells me, and this CSR is giving me the standard "daily balance calculations" he cut/paste from his CapOne CSR 101 manual... 

To keep an already long story short... I got a supervisor in on the convo and they DID credit me back the $38 interest charge... they never would answer my direct questioning as to how I was charged interest in the first place since I paid the ISP, remaining balance and then all of the current charges that would have eventually been subject to interest after the August due date. To reiterate, I paid off my entire balance BEFORE making any new charges so they should not have been subject to interest due to a BT that suspended the grace period. I'm still convinced they had been ripping me off in miscalculated interest for the past 6 mos but there's no way to prove it. After 2 more declines for CLI's, I closed the QS (first card ever with an offensive APR and limit), moved that limit to the Venture where it will sit SD until March when the AF is scheduled to hit and I'll close it. 

**Sorry to the mods if this was too off-topic for the PenFed thread, but still relevant to the trap of common BT Offer practices, including PenFed**

[Tazman81]

Let me add 1 other point of clarity.

If you do a balance transfer, and then make a purchase after the balance transfer, then yes, interest will start accruing immediately.

The only way to avoid having to pay the interest for that billing cycle is if you pay off the ENTIRE balance (the balance transfer + your purchase) by the payment due date.  Then basically they "take back" the interest and you are not charged.

Of course this defeats the purpose of doing a balance transfer at the 0% rate.

So, if you are a new PowerCash Reward card holder, the way to get your $100 credit (for the $1500 spend) and then your 0% BT offer, would be to:

1. do the $1500 spend first
2. let the transactions clear
3. pay it off
4. Do the balance transfer

It's very important that you let the transactions clear b/c you don't want the $1500 credit from your payment sitting on your account and then do a balance transfer b/c then you may run into an issue where the payment is applied to the BT instead of the charged transaction, and you are back in the same boat.

[rebound2014]

Wow... I just went to the site to verify and I don't know how I managed to overlook this. I just joined, opened a checking, and was approved on the PowerCash.. all this past Monday. I was purely seeking a 2% CB card with great long-term relationship/growth potential. I did not even notice their promo... $100 credit for $1.5K spend. Thanks for mentioning that in your example, Taz! 

[Tazman81]

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@fltireguy wrote:

Interesting thing here (see my post in approvals for my Power Cash Rewards Visa).  It seems that they may have to manually take a BK flag off of your profile after a BK ages off of your EQ. I was denied for Inq and BK, even though my BK was NOT showing on a fresh HP from last night for the app. When the rep called me back on the survey, (in the whole 20 minutes since I hit send on the survey), they said that there was an error on THEIR part, and, something to the effect that it was coded onto my profile, and the issue was now resolved. They agreed the BK did not exist at this point...

So, the theory of joining with a dirty EQ file may hold some merit, in that you will never see the quarterly offers if you joined with a BK showing....  

ANy input at all on this?

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I've heard the same, so I would assume that it holds some type of merit.  I also joined with a BK still showing on my credit report.  With regard to the fairly new student loan program that PenFed offers, it was a flat out denial for me, even though my BK will be coming off my report soon.  I did a write up here, but the cliff's notes is that since the program is new, they will not accept anyone that has a BK showing.

With regard to your comment, I'm sure there are others that have been with PenFed longer than me that may be able to give some data points.  I did recall reading something about this in the past, but then heard at one time this was no longer an issue if the BK aged off.  Maybe they didnt have enough time in your case for their system to go through a cleansing process.  (just speculating here).  Anyhow, I didnt receive any offers this quarter, but I am fairly new to PenFed (less than 6 months).  So, I will see if I get anything next quarter.

[DaveInAZ]

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@rebound2014 wrote:

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@DaveInAZ wrote:

One exception is Capital One, when you have a BT they give you an "Interest Saver" payment option - the minimum payment on the BT + amount of any new purchases. If you make that payment (or higher payment) you pay no interest, which is why Cap One is the only BT offer I use. 

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Yeah... ummm... that's what I thought too until just a couple of weeks ago.

I made the mistake of accepting an 0%, 18 mos, 2% BT Fee offer on my Venture last November WHILE still carrying a regular purchase balance (I'd never done a BT before and I learned the hard way)... in February I learned from a CSR how they allocate those payments (and do not allow you to reallocate -- at least Synchrony allowed me to do such on my Lowe's card)... So I made it my mission to get that purchase balance paid off and I never could seem to do it. I can't tell you how many chats I have saved on my desktop and how many times I combed over the statements comparing figures and various balances from month to month. Finally, in June I said screw it.. despite having a year left on that promo balance I paid it all off after my statement (18th of the month).

{Edited for brevity]

**Sorry to the mods if this was too off-topic for the PenFed thread, but still relevant to the trap of common BT Offer practices, including PenFed**

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Very good point, and I'm sure the mods won't mind this very relevant point on BTs going slightly off topic for Penfed data points.

I made the assumption that it was understood one was doing a BT on a card with $0 balance. You should never do a BT on a card with a balance, only do a BT on a card with $0 balance, because when your combined balance has different interest rates, how you payment is applied get very complicated. As required by the CARD Act of 2009, here's how payments are applied:

Making only the minimum payment: The minimum payment can be applied at the card company's discretion. Most every CC issuer will apply a minimum payment to the lowest interest portion of the balance - your 0%/low promo % balance. None of a minimum payment will be applied toward your previous balance at a higher APR. 

Making more than the minimum payment: Any payment over the minimum payment amount must to be applied to the portion of the balance with the highest interest rate. Once that higher interest balance has been fully paid, any remaining payment amount in excess of the minimum is applied to the next highest interest rate, and so on. So if you do a BT on a card that already has a balance at the card's standard interest rate (or a rate higher than your BT), you'll need to do some large payments at first to get rid of that balance to have that 0%/low % BT interest be the only interest charged to your card.

I'm preparing to do a sizable BT on my Quicksilver card w/$20k CL, taking advantage of Cap One's offer of 18 month 0% BT w/2% fee. The card has a current balance of $607 from last month's statement, I'm paying that in full tomorrow, then doing the BT later in the week - and then the card goes in the sock drawer, using my 2-3-5% rewards cards instead.