PenFed app

[Shaw83]

Anyone knows the preferred score for a PenFed card approval? I thought I read someone did it with a 6something score. My scores are current and I have 1derog on TU and EQ 2 medical coll on Ex. Ch 7 discharged in 2013  only showing on my Ex. 

[Loquat]

PenFed can be all over the place with approvals. What they're looking for in a customer seems to change like the weather. There are data points that exist were folks were approved with scores in the 600s but there are equal amount of data points with folks being denied with scores in the 700s.

Again, its a toss up with them. I have several products with them and have financed several cars with them as well. As an institution, I believe they're decent. I wish I could offer more insight as to what they're looking but again, it's anyone's guess.

I can provide what I remember from my approvals some time ago. I obtained every card I have with them and 3 auto loans while by BK13 was still alive and well on my report. My scores ranged between high 600s to high 700's throughout my time as a member with them.

They were one of the few who were willing to overlook my BK and approve me for products. I will say that my DTI has always been very low when I've applied with them so I don't know if that helped or not.

Hopefully those with recent approvals can offer some insight or you can scroll through the Approvals section and look at data points in different threads.

[Anonymous]

I'll offer in addition to @Loquat's larger experience with them, that for myself and several others recently, PenFed pulled EQ FICO9. Most of the recent approvals were for people with at least 715 for that score as I remember. Check yours and see where it lies - if it's in that range and your DTI is decent, your odds may be pretty good.

[Cookiegrabber]

I'd like to add the same, PenFed is hard to predict.

Last year, I was denied for a PenFed Promise card. The score they pulled was EQ9 and my highest score ever, at 785 or something. I had probably 1%-6% util as that was how I kept my credit cards reporting. My credit history was very short at only 1 year, though.

Last week, I was approved for a PenFed Gold card, $5k @ 17.99%. This time my EQ9 score was 755, with total util probably at 30%-ish (times are hard). Total credit history about 2.5 years.

I'm not sure if this helped, but I had PenFed's Share Secured Loan for a year, just to show them that I can pay myself back for 12 months in a row. LOL. There was no hard pull or any sort of credit check to get their SSL, they approve you as long as the money that you're putting into the SSL was sitting in a PenFed account for at least 1 month.