iahphx

Yeah, especially since 6.25% works out to an effective airline ticket rebate (if you use it to book travel) of about 9% -- 25% better than usual. But who can plan airline ticket purchases like THAT?

Of course, we'll all take it, and feel good about it!

Dr_wanderlust

exactly. I just booked three trips for 2012 using my penfed card.

Dr_wanderlust

well for purchases outside the US I use my penfed amex for the zero FETF so an additional .25 is nothing to sneeze at

joshwex90

Does the card still offer Priority Pass membership of passes?

Any reason to choose this card over some of the Capital One cards, none of which have an annual fee or foreign transaction fee, and all of which are geared towards travelers..

Thanks!

p.s. I'd try looking at the site, but my internet is quite fishy right now, and I'm having trouble reading more on the card and its current benefits

Mediahound

Yes but only if you spend $15k and they give you 2 free passes as well as the membership.

slc39

Does anyone know if *everything* charged to the airlines counts for the 5%?
For example, the fee for purchasing/transferring/gifting miles?

Has anyone tried? Specifically interested in Delta and US Airways.

Thanks.

nabeelj

For US Airways, those three are billed by points.com.

nombody

Unfortunately, I've been trying to book travel through penfed after spending some $70,000 with their card over the last year. After spending a week dealing with them on the phone where I must have spent at least 10 hours on the phone with them altogether, they are still unable to book a simple international roundtrip ticket. Their website shows the seats are available, I fill in all the info, and then the order just disappears, but since I had not enough points and needed to do a buyin they also put a hold of $1000 on my card for the order. I've had to do this over a dozen times along with their support reps, and now there are $16k of holds on my card, and still after one week I have no tickets. They have no way to book the tickets manually, even though both continental and Delta show availability and I can book the tickets there at any other online travel site. Their support reps always promise to get back to me, and never do. So now I have 90,000 penfed points that are just sitting there useless in my account. After one week of this, and watching the airfare creep up the whole time, I just paid cash for these tickets elsewhere. I am so fed up with penfed over this that I just want to cancel their card because to me it seems the points are completely useless.

tjguitar85

At least liquidate the points first, you can get $900 in gift cards to some restaurants and such...

iahphx

Sorry to hear of your troubles. I know PenFed Travel Rewards is not glitch free. I don't accumulate enough points for big-money tickets -- I usually use my points for relatively cheap flights -- like an interisland Hawaii flights for my family. I've only had 1 rez "disappear." I waited a few days, and just rebooked it. Not sure what happened. My other PenFed Travel transactions have gone off without a hitch.

nabeelj

Am I just imagining things, or were these points worth ~1.6c before? They now seem to be worth 1.2-1.25c.

Dr_wanderlust

how did 70K in spending result in only 90K in points? I mainly use this card for airfare purchases and, when the promo was on, hotels and meals. For day to day purchases I'd rather use a 2% cashback card.

I've not had any problem redeeming with PenFed. Before canceling in a huff, you should at least cash-out gift cards for Fairmont or something else. I would also suggest writing to the powers that be at penfed (and the company that operates its travel booking) about your terrible experience.

aduncan

In my experience you can only use IE to book rewards. All other browsers won't show the final checkout page. Have you tried that?

relidtm

After about 45-60 days after you get the card, it says they will cover any car non luxury with a value of up to 50k dollars. I think the other parts of the insurance were something like 100/200/100.(don't quote me on that) If you got the decent packet with the book with benefits shortly after you signed up it says that. So I always rent cheap cars unless I get the free upgrade, call me a cheapskate, but if the car is worth under 50k bucks regardless of where you rent it it seems to be ok. Even when I had an amex platinum I never used the lounges because they tended to be too far away, Even though I travel 12 times a year I just didn't see it.

gerald5

Yes the points have been devalued by 22% with no prior communication. Disappointing.