I had been waiting for my scores to improve before trying to refinance my auto loan, yesterday my new 3 credit report became available and I noticed that under the auto loan part it said that I should qualify for the best interest rates. From all of the information that I have read through the forum I wanted to start a relationship with PenFed. I reached out to them by phone yesterday morning to open a account with them and apply for the refinance loan. The customer serivice rep was very helpful and polite through the whole process. After getting all of my information to open my account she took the information for the loan. When she submitted she said that it had been sent to their loan department for review. She asked me if I minded holding and she would reach out to them to see if she couldn't get it finished while I was on the phone. After about 5 minutes she came back and said that the loan was approved but the interest rate was going to be a little higher because of my credit score ( I still have 2 baddies on my credit that come off the end of the year). The interest rate for the loan would be 4.9% which is a little more than half of what my current rate is, so it was a easy decision to take it.
Over all it didn't help my payment which wasn't what I was trying to do but it cut 9 months off my loan and will end up saving me about $4500 over the life of the loan.
After she finished up the loan information I was feeling lucky so I asked if we could use the same pull to apply for their Platinum Rewards Visa Signature Card. I really wanted this card for the fact that it's 5x points on gas and I normally spend $250 to $300 a month on gas. She said that they would normally use the same pull and took the application for the card. Again when she submitted the application it went to review and again she asked if I would mind holding and she would reach out to see if she could get a answer. Within a few minutes she came back on the line and said that the application had been approved with a CL of $5K. I was a little disappointed with the spending limit since my last 2 cards through CSR and Chase Southwest Airlines had limits of $17K and $23K, but didn't want to push it and ask for a higher limit.
Over all I felt like it was a great day and was well worth the HP that I took. I haven't gotten any notification on what credit report they pulled yet but will keep a eye open for that. Credit scores below are what FICO 8 showed me at yesterday before I called PenFed.
EQ 681
TU 673
EX 710
Thanks agian to everyone on here for providing and sharing all the information they have, it has helped me a lot and as you can see saved me money!
