PenFed announced that they would stop accepting applications for the PenFed Pathfinder American Express Rewards card in late 2019. It was then announced that the card would be getting a refresh and running on the Visa payment network and would open to applications in early 2020, that was then delayed.
The new Visa card has now launched and is accepting applications and it looks to be a good card.
Contents
Card Basics
Let’s take a look at the card basics:
- Sign up bonus of 50,000 points after $3,000 in spend within the first 90 days
- $95 annual fee, waived for honors members
- $100 credit towards either TSA PreCheck or Global Entry. This applies once every five years
- $100 airline fee credit
- Card earns at the following rates:
- 4x points on all travel purchases for PenFed Honors Advantage Members (to be eligible for this you must be a military member or holder of PenFed’s Access America checking account)
- 3x Points on on all travel purchases for regular members
- 1.5x Rewards on everything else
- Priority Pass Select Membership (you pay $32 per visit)
We know what triggered the airline fee credit in the past, but that might have changed with the switch to Visa. The card looks to be basically identical to before but with a much higher sign up bonus and the addition of the annual fee. Before the card was an easy one to keep long term, that’s no longer the case unless you have honors membership with PenFed.
Applying For Card
To apply for this card, you must be a member of PenFed. The easiest way to qualify is to be a previous or existing member of the military. You can also join National Military Family Association ($17) or Voices For Troops ($17). More information about becoming a member of PenFed can be found here. They will also sometimes request pay stubs to verify your income.
Referral Bonus
You can get an additional $50 on top of the 50,000 points by using a referral link. You can find and share links here.
How Much Are Points Worth?
Some sample redemptions:
- $50 Prepaid Visa card = 5,880 points
- $25 Southwest gift card = 2,940 points
- $100 Delta gift card = 11,760 points
- $10 Amazon gift card = 1,170 points
Basically 50,000 points = $425.
Honors Membership Requirements
To be an honors member (no annual fee and higher earning rate on travel) you either need to be member of the military or Access America account holder
Our Verdict
Overall the card is worth getting for the sign up bonus. The card is worth keeping long term if your an honors member as you get the annual fee waived and the $100 airline credit to use, otherwise I don’t think it makes sense to keep as you need to pay the annual fee and this wipes out the airline credit. We will add this to our list of the best credit card bonuses.
DP for airline credits: Purchased electronic AA gc for $100 on 2/20. 2/23 credit posted.
I received some referrer rewards from this program, but one of my cards I added to my digital wallet is nowhere to be found. I have contacted tango and davinci payments to no avail, and am now contacting penfed to try to have my gift card reissued. Has anyone else had this problem with their virtual visas?
Are existing cardholders going to be notified that a fee has been added? If they don’t notify, they can’t charge it, right? Possible some are grandfathered?
If they do charge the fee, Is it worth the bother of opening up a $500 checking account to make the card fee-free?
All referral links say the referral program has ended
I just checked and my $100 credit posted on 2.7.21 with a transaction date of 2.4.21. It took exactly 2 weeks after I made the initial $100 AA gc purchase so no need to worry if the credit doesn’t post right away.
All the referred / referee rewards came in today. I had given up the hope after getting bounced around few weeks back. Had called them/ emailed them/ and secure messaged them too. This was schweet program !!
A date timeline would be useful.
All folks were referred in last week of Dec and First week of Jan. showing how others got their referral bonus quickly, I called them up in mid Jan. Got canned response of we will get back to you. Then Crickets. Emailed them via rewards website. More Crickets. Didn’t wanted to spend too much time on this..Decided to let it go. And, then finally emails came in today
I just emailed them so I guess we’ll see what happens. I got approved in early Jan.
🦗🦗🦗🦗🦗🦗🦗
As expected, still crickets a week later lol.
Prepaid Visa card redemption is handled by prepaid digital solutions (the same one Swagbucks uses), but “Save for Later” option is not available on these tokens.
Is there a way to get email/text (not mobile app) alerts for CC transactions?
The referral program has ended.

William Charles
My link still works?
PenFed: Our referral program has ended
https://penfed.extole.io/
But similar to First Tech, the individual referral link that was generated does not say anything about it. I wouldn’t risk it.


ieatdogfood
Good catch. I also clicked on “refer more friends” and view stats link in the email and they say the same thing you pointed out, even though the referral links still appear to work. However I agree with you, not worth the risk.
I’ll have to follow up with my own referee bonus for getting approved for a PenFed CC in a couple of days, if it doesn’t automatically get sent to me. It will pass the two week mark.
Hmmmm… I just got a referral reward today (as a referrer). Still haven’t received mine as a referee. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Well, since you applied and got approved before they announced ending the referral program, you would have a solid case to fight for the reward if they do not issue it. Hope it does not come to that.
Referral links are officially no longer working. Makes me believe they would honor them if you were able to use them while they were working, similar to how Chase does their slow rollouts.
Nice observation. This could be true!
BTW, I happened to notice your comments on the Sunflower thread. OOS online applications worked??


ieatdogfood
Yes but don’t know about payout yet.
Thank you! I just opened an account without any problem. I did not notice any bonus eligibility languages related to locations, so I am optimistic about the payout. I think it may be a nationwide offer for the sunset checking & savings account, which are the only two account types that can be opened online.
You never know with the smaller banks. We will be the first generation DPs.
DP: loaded $50 to United Travel Bank in late December 2020. Not reimbursement. We can safely rule out UA if you are using the Visa version card.
Same for a 01/01 travelbank purchase. 🙁