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PenFed Platinum Rewards - Approved in 1 hr.

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roshan
Contributor

PenFed Platinum Rewards - Approved in 1 hr.

Hello everyone

 

After reading lot ofinformation about PenFed CU, I finally apply for it today.

 

FICO between 725 to 775

Credit card UTI: under 3%

Current high CL:  5000 on CR. 

no late payments

1 mortgage and 1 auto loan.

 

After finishing application for PenFed Platinum Rewards  it says application has been send to loan office for $20,000 

20K WOW 

if approved it will be my first card with this high limit.

 

Does any one know how many days it may take for final approval with PenFed?

 

********************

Update:  WOW 

Approved

 

It is Approved for $20K. My first Highest limit Card. it took 1 hr to go from pending to approve.

in comment they said contact us for Identity verification so i called them and she put me on hold for 10 mins and came back and said "They don't need anything from me. nothing for ID verification. I am all set and i will get my card in 7 - 10 days."

 

Wow I have never seen this nice customer service.

Message 1 of 19
18 REPLIES 18
bs6054
Valued Contributor

Re: PenFed Platinum Rewards - Pending

Depends how busy they are!  There was a recent post complaining about the delay.  But usually within a few days.  Congrats, that is the max limit they give new customers.

Message 2 of 19
Sevenfeet
Regular Contributor

Re: PenFed Platinum Rewards - Pending

Good luck with this.  Penfed approvals are done by real people so it will likely take a few days so be patient.  They may ask for paystubs which is perfectly normal.

Message 3 of 19
roshan
Contributor

Re: PenFed Platinum Rewards - Pending

If they need PayStab, will they email me or call me?

Message 4 of 19
Sevenfeet
Regular Contributor

Re: PenFed Platinum Rewards - Pending


@bs6054 wrote:

Depends how busy they are!  There was a recent post complaining about the delay.  But usually within a few days.  Congrats, that is the max limit they give new customers.

Actually, it's not.  I got $28K.
Message 5 of 19
Sevenfeet
Regular Contributor

Re: PenFed Platinum Rewards - Pending


@roshan wrote:

If they need PayStab, will they email me or call me?


Keep monitoring the "Apply Now" tab on their website.  If they have any messages to send you regarding the need for paystubs (or whether the application has been approved & transferred or declined, you'll find out there.

Message 6 of 19
roshan
Contributor

Re: PenFed Platinum Rewards - Pending


@Sevenfeet wrote:

@roshan wrote:

If they need PayStab, will they email me or call me?


Keep monitoring the "Apply Now" tab on their website.  If they have any messages to send you regarding the need for paystubs (or whether the application has been approved & transferred or declined, you'll find out there.


Hi Sevenfeet

 

I love you signature and all your credit limits. How did you do that? 

what's your score if you don't mind me asking and if you can give any advise on how to get high CL.

 

thank you

Message 7 of 19
bs6054
Valued Contributor

Re: PenFed Platinum Rewards - Pending


@Sevenfeet wrote:

@bs6054 wrote:

Depends how busy they are!  There was a recent post complaining about the delay.  But usually within a few days.  Congrats, that is the max limit they give new customers.

Actually, it's not.  I got $28K.

Oh, interesting.  I can't remember where I was told that, but obviously wrong!.

Message 8 of 19
roshan
Contributor

Re: PenFed Platinum Rewards - Pending

It's approved with 20K.

Message 9 of 19
Sevenfeet
Regular Contributor

Re: PenFed Platinum Rewards - Pending


@roshan wrote:

@Sevenfeet wrote:

@roshan wrote:

If they need PayStab, will they email me or call me?


Keep monitoring the "Apply Now" tab on their website.  If they have any messages to send you regarding the need for paystubs (or whether the application has been approved & transferred or declined, you'll find out there.


Hi Sevenfeet

 

I love you signature and all your credit limits. How did you do that? 

what's your score if you don't mind me asking and if you can give any advise on how to get high CL.

 

thank you


I've written about this before but I'm happy to recap.  My recent credit journey has been part strategy, part begging and pleading, and a little luck.  What's even more interesting about my current credit wallet is that on 1/15/13, I had only three cards (Amex Platinum, BofA World Mastercard and Chase Slate) with a total CL of $25K.  And a utilization of 95%...pretty closed to maxed out.  But in my favor I had good credit numbers because of a clean payment history combined with a long total credit history (25 years, 7 3/4 years AAoA).

 

My goals were:

 

1. Increase my overall credit limit to get the utilization down as much as possible

2. Apply for cash back cards to maximize cash rewards to my household budget.  Best case scenario was saving $2000+ a year.

3. Apply for one, maybe two 0% balance transfer cards to accelerate the payment of existing credit card debt on Amex and BofA.

 

 

After reading a lot of what people had done here and elsewhere, my strategy was as follows:

 

1.  Convince Chase to raise our limit.  

 

We got very lucky and got a very receptive customer rep who listened to what my family needed and raised our limit from $13.5K to $25K.  And then they product changed us to the Freedom card at the same time.  Did I mention that we already had an interest rate of prime (3.25%) and they let us keep that?  It required a hard pull, but it was truly the miracle call and it set the table for everything else to happen.

 

2.  Do an online CLI for BofA from $13.5K to $20K

 

I waited a week until the new Chase CL reported to the credit bureaus, then apped online at BofA and asked for $20K (I didn't want to get greedy and ask for $25K to match Chase).  BofA approved the increase in 24 hours.  I also got BofA to product change me to the Cash Reward Mastercard over the phone.

 

I checked my scores at this point and the three bureaus were all at 750-759, FICO EQ was 732.

 

3.  Apply for a 0% card.  

 

Based upon feedback here, I decided to go for a Penfed Platinum Rewards Visa since I needed a gas/groceries card without a cap and Penfed was doing an 18 month/0% balance transfer deal.  When I applied I went for my stretch request of $28K which was exactly the amount I had in debt on other cards that we wanted to pay down faster.  It was a nail-biting few days but they eventually approved me.  I think the reason i got approved was the clean credit history and that my household income is on the higher side at $170K.  It was also the first card we truly apped for, so it was strategically placed at the beginning of the app spree, not later.

 

4.  Apply for strategic rewards cards: Amex BCP, Fidelity Amex

 

According to my spending patterns, getting these two cards would directly benefit two of my largest budget outlays (groceries and "uncategorized").  At this point, my previous credit relationships helped me.  Having a long clean relationship with Amex had them drop a BCP card on me with $20K to start with.  And since Fidelity's cards are managed by FIA (BofA), they already knew my relationship with my BofA Mastercard and they gave me $20K to begin as well.

 

5.  Apply for the lesser strategic cards: (Discover, US Bank Cash +)

 

Getting these cards was important but I wouldn't save as much money using them, especially since US Bank is ending Bill Pay as a 5% category in a few days.  But they were important nonetheless.  By this time my app spree was catching up to me and my limits granted were less.  The US Bank card came in at "only" $7K.  Now granted, I had no relationship with them to start with so they were more conservative with me.  Also, my scores were plummenting (698 EX FICO)  The interest rate was also bad (20.99%...all the previous cards were 9.99%-13.99%).  Discover was even worse...$2.5K CL, 20.99%.  I had intended to buy a new computer from the Apple store on Discover which will likely cost me in the neighborhood of $2500, maybe more.  And ironically I got a mail offer for Discover three weeks later for a much better interest rate (12.99%).  Weirdly, I've been told by Discover that I can still app for that and have TWO CARDS.

 

6.  Have my wife apply for a Amex BCP of her own.

 

All the new cards my wife would be an AU of mine (I'm an AU on her Chase Freedom).  But we wanted her to get own BCP card to double our benefit with Amex on groceries since they cap that at $6000 a year.  That was successful in large part because I AU'd her on all the new cards and limits with the exception of Penfed, which had all balance transfer stuff on it.  Since her credit line was artificially low and she's been a good Amex customer for about as long as me, she got the BCP but with a limit of $8500 (she actually had a couple of baddies on her reports from 3-4 years ago...nothing major).  After that, I AU'd her for Penfed to round out her wallet.

 

So I began with three cards and a limit of $25K total.  I now have 8 cards with a limit of $122.5K and a cost savings to my budget of $2000+ in rewards annually, not counting the $250 x 2 we get from Amex for opening the BCP cards through creditcards.com.  And the whole process took about 60 days.

 

Next steps:

 

1.  Complete paying down credit card debt on Penfed and Chase for the next 18 months.  Easily the most important goal.

 

2.  Consider apping again for Discover.  I was kind of ticked at the Discover interest rate that I got.  Since my scores have begun to recover (EQ 739, FICO EQ 736), I may have a better shot.  And if I get a better CL, it will help my computer purchase.  I can still use the other Discover card for 0% purchases until May 2014.

 

3.  App for a Citi Thank You Preferred.  I got an offer in the mail yesterday (the number of offers I get now are way up!) for a 0% balance transfer/purchases for 21 months and an interest rate of only 11.99% (lower than the normal offers).  I don't really need this but I am looking at making some electronics purchases this year (new TVs) and I could in theory delay interest into 2015.  Citi's cash back program doesn't fit my needs but I like using other people's money for free for long periods of time.

 

My advice:

 

1.  Prioritize.  Put the things you really need on your app list first and be prepared to go to the mat to get them.

 

2.  Don't get too greedy.  In hindsight, I probably should have waited to app for Discover and US Bank since my credit scores were plunging after Penfed, Fidelity and Amex.  it didn't take long for my scores to rebound.

 

3.  Don't app for what other people think is cool...do your own due diligence.  The CSP card is very popular here but I don't need another travel card since I already have the expensive Amex Platinum and I travel for a living anyway (500K points on Delta in the bank).

Message 10 of 19
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