CLARIFICATION: I just called PenFed. Although their website info. Is messed up this month due to their "re-coding" of everyone's accounts, next month everything should display correctly. It turns out that I didn't get any communications (they said that they sent 3 out) about the changes because my my 5% cash back for gas benefit isn't changing. Why not? Because I have a P-LOC (10K) with them.
Starting this month, for the Penfed Platinum Cash Rewards card, there are 2 versions: Standard (get only 3% cash back for gas) and Plus (same as before, 5% cash back for gas). If you have any other loan product with PenFed (car, house, re-fi, personal line of credit), you were automatically designated as Plus. If they looked at your account this month and all that you had with them was their credit card, they reduced your benefit level down to Standard.
I asked if new applicants will all automatically be at 3%, or if they app simultaneously for, say, a P-LOC, can they get 5%? The answer is, new applicants can app for just the card and get Standard, or app for the card and then a loan of any type and get Plus from Day 1 forward, AND anyone who is currently or will start their relationship with P-Fed as Standard, if they ever in the future also get a PenFed loan product, their loan will trigger an automatic upgrade to the Plus benefit level within 1 month.
If you have a P-LOC and maintain it at a zero balance, you still qualify. The balance owed to P-Fed doesn't matter, for eligibility purposes. So the best thing to do if you don't really want or need to be making loan payments at this time to P-Fed is to just get a line of credit going with them just so you can get the higher gas rate, since having the available credit line costs you nothing.
PenFed says that all of these card changes were driven by Visa, and not by them. I don't know enough about how things work to know whether I should believe that, or not.
Oh, and no one's product type has changed. If you had the Platinum Cash Rewards, you'll still have it and still will get cash back vs. points...although for some, it may not be as much cash back as before. Your info. should display correctly on the website sometime next month.
All 3 bureaus (per Amex CreditSecure FAKO) are still 748 (as of 12/19/13). Cards: Discover It, $12,100, Chase Freedom $3,300, Chase Amazon $1,500, Walmart store $11,000, AMEX Zync NPSL, Costco Amex $14,700. US. Bank Cash +, $5,000. AMEX SPG $6,000, PenFed Plat. Cash Rewards $17,500, PenFed P-LOC $10,000, Citi Forward $5,100, Chase Slate $5,000, Old Navy, $2,200.
