Penfed Pathfinder Rewards

[Anonymous]

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@phantasm wrote:

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It's right there in the quoted text "monthly direct deposits of $500 or more". Either a single $500 or multiple deposits totaling $500 or more each month will satisfy the requirement.  A minimum deposit amount of $500 would say "monthly direct deposit of $500 or more", meaning one single transaction must be $500 or more. 

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Probably right, but too subtle to rely on IMO!  The "s" in deposits could equally be because they occur every month, so there is more than one.  So very reasonable of @xenon3030 to ask here for experience (be interesting to know the wording for the BoA account mentioned!)

In this case, if finances allow, I would always just keep $500, which earns some interest (though certainly below market maximums) just to avoid any changing interpretation.  Especially over questions about ACH counting as direct deposit.

[xenon3030]

The BOA wording is below. Until now, I saw such a requirement at only BOA. Note that the majority of people get paid twice per month, such a requirement for a single deposit per month instead of total DD per month is a bit awkward. Anyway, it might be done on purpose to get more money from people :

"Bank of America Advantage Plus has a $100 minimum opening deposit and a $12 monthly maintenance fee which can be waived if you do one of the following: Make at least one qualifying Direct Deposit of $250 or more. Maintain a minimum daily balance of $1,500 or more."

[Anonymous]

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@xenon3030 wrote:

The BOA wording is below. Until now, I saw such a requirement at only BOA. Note that the majority of people get paid twice per month, such a requirement for a single deposit per month instead of total DD per month is a bit awkward. Anyway, it might be done on purpose to get more money from people :

"Bank of America Advantage Plus has a $100 minimum opening deposit and a $12 monthly maintenance fee which can be waived if you do one of the following: Make at least one qualifying Direct Deposit of $250 or more. Maintain a minimum daily balance of $1,500 or more."

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Right, that sort of language is pretty clear, we need one DD of $250+, not ones adding to $250+.  So agreeing more with @phantasm that Penfed probably doesn't mind multiples to reach the threshold, but again, if you can park $500, I would!

[LADave]

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@phantasm wrote:

Once you accrue rewards, there will be a link out to redeem.penfed.org from your account page. Once on the site you can purchase GC, merchandice, travel, or donate to charity.

I'm also very interested in what kind of travel can be purchased on the site at or near $0.01 per point. Out of curiosity I tried the preapproval feature on the site, and after calling Penfed I found out I've been preapproved for a $5K SL. Since I'm not military or a vet I'd need to do more banking at Penfed for the offer to start to look compelling.

How comprehensive is the travel portal?  Can I use cash + points if I don't have enough points? Is there a way I can preview the travel and other offers on the site before I accept the card?

[LADave]

Update: After reviewing other posts here and checking out the video on the PenFed site (https://www.penfed.org/credit-cards/rewards-center) I'm pretty satisfied I can find what I'm looking for on the travel portal, and pay with cash if I don't have enough points. I went ahead and got the card. I'll make a separate post in the Approvals section.

[phantasm]

 Check out the GreenState FCU world card. It will give 5% CB as a statement credit on air and hotel. Overall the travel categories are much more limited than PenFed but if those are you main travel categories it's a good deal. Note that others have stated that it can take a few weeks for the statement credit to get pushed through. I haven't yet pushed a statement credit but should soon so can update with my personal experience. 

[okurosetta]

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@LADave wrote:
I'm also very interested in what kind of travel can be purchased on the site at or near $0.01 per point. Out of curiosity I tried the preapproval feature on the site, and after calling Penfed I found out I've been preapproved for a $5K SL. Since I'm not military or a vet I'd need to do more banking at Penfed for the offer to start to look compelling.

How comprehensive is the travel portal?  Can I use cash + points if I don't have enough points? Is there a way I can preview the travel and other offers on the site before I accept the card?

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I personally have yet to find any travel for greater than .85 cents per point. All travel, thus far, has been .85 cpp on the price they are charging. I emphasize this because all travel has been more expensive than booking direct. So a hypothetical 20k point redemption on a $170 booking on their portal - sure, that works out to be .85 cpp, but if you can pay $150 by booking directly, do you really see .85 cpp in value?

My personal answer is no, that would effectively be .75 cpp (arguably even less as you'd earn rewards on paid stays), so thus far I have only redeemed for gift cards. Because of this, I have done a few Fanatics gift cards at ~.95 cpp and recently did an Amazon gift card at ~.85 cpp.

You can indeed do cash + points for travel if you don't have enough points, but the above about portal prices being higher still rings true.

I do see you got the card, and am not trying to be negative, just honest. Your travel bookings may see better portal results than mine - and maybe I'll see better results in time. But, at least for me personally, this card won't see a ton of use now that the welcome bonus is finished, so I'll just redeem for some sort of gift card every so often. For me, this card is all about parking $500 to get the $100 ancillary airline credit with a waived annual fee - everything else is just extra, whether it is a minor perk or minor inconvenience.

[LADave]

Thanks for the feedback, @okurosetta. I more-or-less came to a similar conclusion - the card was worth it for the SUB and using it for $100 in free incidentals, while parking $500 in a PenFed checking account. By that measure, the rate of return is still better than putting the $500 in a HYSA.

I did find another post that the bookings weren't a lot higher than booking direct, but clearly YMMV. If I'm earning 4 points per dollar spent on travel with the card and those points continue to be worth 85 cpp, I'm essentially getting 3.4 cents of value per dollar on travel before the travel portal markup - which is slightly better than my Wells Fargo Autograph card at 3 cents per dollar. After the markup, it might come out to a wash or slightly better (or slightly worse).

The second-worst-case scenario is that I redeem points  for gift cards - possibly at 1 cpp - for things I was going to buy anyway. Then put the money I would have otherwise spent in the HYSA that I use for travel, where the money has come from credit card rewards and SUBs. (That's the account where I transferred the $500 from - I've been on Team Cashback for a while.)

The worst case scenario is that I only use the card for $100 in airline incidental charges and maybe TSA Pre Check once every 5 years - and in that case, I'm still coming out ahead.

[LADave]

Thanks for the tip. The card doesn't really have what I was looking for (particularly for the SUB and reimbursement of travel expenses), but I'm not eligible to be a member of this CU anyway (it's mainly for people living in or near Iowa). I'm sure it's still a good fit for many people.

I do have a car loan with a local credit union, and it's always a good idea to check into what they're offering, particularly when shopping for loans or cards.

[okurosetta]

Agreed for sure. For me right now it's an $18.75 opportunity cost loss per year based on Access America earning .15% and my uncapped HYSA (Capital One) earning 3.9%. $100 in ancillary airline credits for an $18.75 opportunity cost loss is insane! And when rates go back down, then the opportunity cost loss will be even lower.

I would say the travel portal costs are not that much higher, at least generally speaking, but your second-best scenario may actually be your best. If something works out to .80 cpp when calculated based on the direct booking price, you may as well use the .85 cpp gift card options. Since those include Amazon, Target, Walmart, Home Depot, Lowes, etc etc, I doubt you will have trouble finding a use.