tomprc said:Most CSRs do not know that much. I think FWer's don't trust CSR.

therivler1 said:tomprc said:have anyone tried to pay inside (e.g. buy gift card) and got 5% CashBack?
The CSR I spoke with was very adamant about swiping it as the pump and not going inside. So, I don't think it will work.
True, but aside from personal experiences, this is what I have to go on. Should be very easy to verify if you are so inclined.

Does this card have online access? Penfed's site is pretty crappy, but when I view my credit card I don't see any option to pay the account online. This will be mighty annoying if we have to pay via paper check.

Grobe said:What are the payment options for the credit card bills? (I am interested in Autopay in full each month)

It's not really intuitive, but I've set up autopay in full on the monthly balance from my cross-country checking account. Per the CSR ( i called twice and another person called and verified): go to the PenFed website, click forms, go to the 6th highlighted item down "Authorization Agreement for Automated Clearing House (ACH) Debit". Print out several copies, including one for your checking ac'ct bank, fill out using your credit card # as the PFCU loan#. Check automatic transfer from another institution. In section A make a new checked box and write something like "credit card monthly bill in full each month. Add a voided check and mail a copy of the form with voided check to PenFed.

Full disclosure: This is supposed to work, but my setup is too new for any payments to have been withdrawn from my account yet.

WalStMonky said:What a lot of work. PFCU credit card is an electronic payee via Checkfree. The only disadvantage I see there is that they won't automatically know your monthly balance. That's a non-issue for me since I prefer not to use auto-pay. I need to check my bills every month and it's not much extra effort to fill in the blank and schedule the send. I just can't see ceding control to the payee.

PFCU's method of setting up an auto-pay is not the easiest, true. We do a combination of auto-pays, check frees, and paper checks and always balance and match to our categorized Quicken entries. Since we pay in our cards in full each month it is not worth the risk to have a late payment, and they (card companies and others ) seem to draw as late as possible - later than I would risk. Moving toward maximum auto pay so we could dissappear for a month or two or more if we wished without having any unpaid bills.

tomprc said:have anyone tried to pay inside (e.g. buy gift card) and got 5% CashBack?


My personal experience during the month of January is paying inside doesn't get the 5% CashBack. It only works at the pump.

walletfart said:Does this card have online access? Penfed's site is pretty crappy, but when I view my credit card I don't see any option to pay the account online. This will be mighty annoying if we have to pay via paper check.
6 months of no problems with your account before you can ACH into share account then transfer to credit card. I asked the same question in the newb thread and emailed Penfed at the same time. Of course it was answered in an hour in the newb thread and verified about 3 days later by Penfed.

What they giveth they taketh....Penfed VISA rates raised to 13.99 from 12.99

Of course it doesn't matter if you don't keep a balance, but this may be a trend where they lure you in and then wack!

therivler1 said:walletfart said:PFCU charges $3/ACH if you do an ACH over the phone. I'm surprised that they don't have a way to pay the CC online through eCheck or what-not. This is the 21st century!
They do. Transfer to your share account through normal ACH, and then move the money from the share account to the CC. This has been previously discussed.

That's a roundabout way though.

Luckily, Wachovia has a partnership with them in the Billpay so that you can pay it directly through an e-bill.

therivler1 said:walletfart said:PFCU charges $3/ACH if you do an ACH over the phone. I'm surprised that they don't have a way to pay the CC online through eCheck or what-not. This is the 21st century!
They do. Transfer to your share account through normal ACH, and then move the money from the share account to the CC. This has been previously discussed.

I used to do that before. It was very inconvenient.
I'm now using mycheckfree.com & very sastisfied.

According to the threads about this and the literature from Citi, they don't give a direct answer. I'm not too worried about it being reclassified as a cash advance, etc., b/c PenFed doesn't charge the normal 3% fee that most places do, but they do charge interest immediately. The way I figure it, it would take me at least 4-5 days to get the money back from PenFed and by then I would have paid about $40 in interest and not gotten any rewards. As a result, I'd like to be sure before I pull the trigger.