I've been trying to find a higher rewards accumulation for gas. I'd been using my Amex at 3%. So I signed up for the 5% Penfed Platinum Rewards credit card. I had to pay a small fee to "join" and deposit an $8 minimum into a separate Penfed account. Not ideal, but I figured with the 5% on gas that I'll make this up over time.
Got the card, points are accumulating at 5% on gas purchases as expected, and I'm up to 2,150 points which should be the equivalent of $21.50. All seems to be going well!
Then I learn what the catch is...they do not offer statement credit or cash back for the Platinum Rewards card. The seemingly best option I have is to get a Visa gift card. Sigh, this isn't part of my strategy! Any purchase I use a Visa gift card for is going to mean I'm not using a credit card which accumulates points.
Ok, so I'll just take the blow here, get a Visa gift card and maybe I can sell it to friends/family or something. NOPE, there's more. I go to review the Visa gift card option (or any rewards option for that matter) and they want 5,880 points for a $50 gift card. That means I have to use $58.80 worth of points to get $50. That's 15%!! What in the effing F kind of BS is this!!
So it looks like I got duped; didn't do my homework beforehand. I haven't seen any of this info discussed elsewhere, so I figured I'd share as fair warning to others.
Beware of the Penfed Platinum Rewards sham.
