PenFed Premium Travel Rewards AmEx [5x/3x/1x, $0 fee, 20K bonus]
 

* Earn 5 points per dollar spent on airfare purchases.
* Earn 3 points per dollar spent on hotel stays and purchases made at restaurants until December 31, 2010.
* Earn one point for virtually every dollar you spend on all other purchases.
* There is no limit to the number of points you can earn.
* $50 annual fee (waived first year)
* 20,000 bonus points after $650 in purchases on the card

Points are worth about 1 cent apiece as $100 gift cards are had for 10,000 points.

Here's a link.

Thanks for posting this, are the bonus points Penfed points or AMX MR points?

Penfed Points. The card is not issued by Amex, Penfed is using the Amex network, like BofA, Citi, and GEMB...

Don't forget about Priority Pass
 

Includes Priority Pass with 2 free entries. Not a bad deal, I'll give it a whirl.

the reward selection is pretty disappointing, so don't count on the full 5%/3% back if you can't redeem on anything good...

Does anyone know how the hotel upgrades work? Which chains, etc?

iirc, a minimum spend is required to earn Priority Pass entry.

Where did you see that? A link please. Don't see that here https://www.penfed.org/productsAndRa...Cards/amex.asp

Thanks.

There are a lot of $200 GC for the 20K points they give you.

There no minimum for Priority Pass. You just get 2 freebies.

$50 annual fee, free for the first year.

Spend $650 inthe first 3 months to get the 20 points bonus.

https://www.penfed.org/usedbehindpin...aryofterms.asp

This looks like a pretty darn good deal. I applied, and was instantly accepted. You first need to become a member, and deposit $5 into a savings account. It's not hard, and they don't even seem to check your qualification reference.

Does anyone know who administers their airline ticket redemption program? 20,000 miles supposedly gets you a free ticket -- and I wonder if their are good int'l award opportunities for a few thousand more points.

The terms in rewards web site state the following -

Airline Travel Redemption
You may redeem Points for airline tickets as follows:
Ticket up to $250: 15,000 Points
Ticket between $251–$350: 25,000 Points
Ticket between $351–$500: 35,000 Points
Ticket between $501–$750: 50,000 Points
Ticket between $751–$999: 70,000 Points
Ticket over $1000: 100,000 Points

So they might be saying using 15K points one can get free airline ticket up to $250.

The 100K redemption level is interesting, if the redemption is allowed for international travel then one can may redeem 100K points for any ticket over $1000.

Reminds me a little of the citi thank you fixed point flight rewards structure...

This is not true. You need to spend $15,000 per year to get the Priority Pass. If you don't believe me, go ahead and call them yourself.