Yes, but they're also a big MNC bank like Citibank.

Mine arrived today. If you request the card for an existing account, a new TL is opened with the original date and the existing card is closed within a few weeks.

My new TL doesn't show the original date. Where did you see "closed within a few weeks"? The site now says within 14 days. However, both my cards are still active after a month.

Customer service told me that the new TL would have the original opening date, and that the 2nd line would be closed with 2 weeks.

Mine hasn't even shown up on my report yet, but I'll be really annoyed if it shows a 2013 opening date. My old card, too - has not been closed yet.

The Bank of America Travel Rewards Card, does it have a PIN option? Website claims there's no need to make a PIN. What about train stations - any knowledge if it will work?

Unless something's changed recently, all BofA EMV cards are chip-and-sig.

But there have been some reports here of chip&sig cards that will work at unattended kiosks, I think by using a cash advance PIN.

Per results from various FTers so far, the consensus for Chip & Signature cards when entering a PIN seems to be:

If the unattended kiosk is capable of online transaction (meaning: checks the PIN by connecting to the bank's server for authentication), it might work.

If it's an offline transaction (meaning: the kiosk has no way of checking online, instead, it looks to see if the PIN is hard encoded onto the chip), then most likely not as the EMV chip on Chip & Signature cards do not have the PIN coded onto them.

PenFed assigned a random PIN
 

I upgraded my PenFed card to an EMV account, but PenFed has assigned me a random PIN instead of the one I selected online. I received a PIN notification from them today with a different number than I chose, and when I called to sort out which PIN was actually valid the rep told me the one in the mailer was correct. Has anyone else ended up with a random PIN from PenFed?

Me too...exactly the same thing today.

...
 

I received that too, I assumed that the PIN in the letter is for non-EMV use (e.g. getting cash advance at a USA ATM through the Cirrus or Plus network) and that the chip is still protected with the PIN I provided when I ordered the card.

Is this not a valid assumption? The customer service reps may not be that familiar with EMV cards. They *should* issue the cards with both PINs (network and chip) set to the same number for sanity, but since changing the chip PIN (e.g. at an EMV ATM) and the network PIN are separate processes, there is no guarantee that they would remain the same in the future.
The only way to know for sure is to try using the card at an EMV terminal.

Does anyone know if US issued EMV cards can have their PINs changed at EMV ATMS like European issued cards?

Diners Club told me that I would have to go to a EMV country's ATM in order to change my chip PIN (since these ATMs have PIN changing ability), or else I could mail the card back to them if I needed to change it. That's not a great long term strategy, if I knew somebody saw me enter my PIN, I'd want to change it immediately....

I have smart card readers on all of my computers, so it would be great if we could use our computer to change the PIN--but--they would need to issue us software to do that.

By the way, smart cards have PINs encoded on the chip, that's part of the smart card security model. As I mentioned earlier, there's no guarantee that the chip PIN will remain the same as the network (e.g. Cirrus/Plus) PIN.

Since a customer would have no obvious way to know if a transaction was using online PIN verification vs. offline PIN verification, how would (s)he know which PIN to use? It seems more likely that the card and network must always use the same PIN value. However, some first-hand testing would be much more relevant than additional speculation.

FWIW, EMVCo specifications are online at <http://www.emvco.com/specifications.aspx>. The ISO/IEC 7816 standard isn't freely available, but Wikipedia has an overview of the EMV protocol suite at <http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMV#section_3>

Just logged onto my PenFed account. It now gives me the option to convert my existing card to a chip card, although the account number will change. I am submitting my request now.

A little peak into what's upcoming next to a bank branch near you:

U.S. Military Members in Germany Can Now Receive Instant-Issue Credit and Debit Cards with EMV® Smart Card Technology

If said becomes available at the neighborhood branch level for major banks in the US, it would make conversion process and even PIN changes a lot more easier and faster.

Sigh...once again, it apparently depends on which CSR you get; I called te same day you did, explained that we're leaving for Iceland the 15th and was assured that I would get the card in time--which I did, today, 2/12.

Mine is a new MasterCard account, because they are not offering this yet on the Visa I already had. And, unlike my State Dept FCU card, I was told this one does not default to signature. But my big surprise is that I got two cards--same number, one with chip, the other without. The CSR I spoke to tonight told me that the ordering and account conversion process is so new that's likely to happen for other new orders for a while.