One of the best card released in 2018 was Penfed Pathfinder Rewards. This no annual fee card earns up to 4x on travel, provides one Global Entry or TSA PreCheck credit every 5 year, has 25k signup bonus, and most of all provides an annual travel credit of $100. Sure these points cannot be cashed out, have 0.85 cpp redemption on gift cards such as that of Amazon, but free annual credit is free and the signup bonus is generous enough for such a feature packed no annual fee card. However, when attempting to redeem my annual travel credit, I noticed that the travel credit nullifies deducts credit just like a refund would.
PenFed’s Pathfinder Rewards provided free annual $100 credit. Since the card earns 3x-4x on Travel, I thought I would annually benefit at least $100 + 300-400 points from this card but I was wrong. My United award fee of $11.20 triggered a travel credit but PenFed also deducted 1.5x+1.5x = 3x I had earned on said award fee.
PenFed Travel Credit Deducts Earned Points
PenFed also has an interesting way of coding bonus earning. The “standard” part refers to 1.5x earning on everything while the bonus part refers to additional 1.5x (net 3x) on travel.
Closing Thought
Obviously not the end of the world but interesting stuff nevertheless.
1 comment
How long did it take for the credit to post?