That's a good question. I'm not sure what is the answer. I'll do some Googling and get back to you if I find an useful answer. You should email the people at Discover Card as they probably can help you..

I really think PenFed has "classes" of members.....

There is NO way they are this stringent on everyone....Think about the percentages...out of all the members here such a very small % of people are able to get cards, I'm thinking 1 - 5 % tops. Maybe 10% can qualify for checking, MMA, etc..

The pentagon has 26,000 employee's obviously not everyone is a member....but even if every employee were a member, based on rough numbers, only 260 - 1300 people would qualify for a Discover card and only 2,600 for a checking account..

In 2008, they reported just shy of 1,000,000 members....so we'lll go with a million members....using the percentages from above they would only have....10,000 to 50,000 credit cards and only 100,000 checking accounts......maybe that's all they have but as the 3rd largest credit union I would think they have more than that....

My theory is, that people, like us, who join online and by using the associations are a different class or group who are held to higher standards than military and pentagon employee's who join at the branches...kind of like maceys Discover card in a way (online vs instore).

I mean there is just no way everyone that works at the Pentagon has Bob Wang style credit ...while there are alot of Admirals, Generals, Colonels, etc. there are WAY more Sergent's (and lower) and Civil Service employee's that just make a comfortable living.

Now if this could be proved, the "owners" that have been put into "second class" or "egypt class" would have a heck of an interesting case...as unlike macy's penfed members are owners....and while you don't have the right or expectation of being issued credit if your not credit worthy, you do have the right or expectation of being issued credit if everything is the same. I.E. if member A and member B have the same (or very similar) credit score, credit history, income, etc and member A is approved, member B should not be held to a higher standard just because of the way he joined, especially if it was not clearly explained to him when he purchased his share of the company, that he would be held to a higher standard than other members who joined in a different fashion..

This post has been edited by.

Firefighter 161.

: 07 January 2010 - 06:41 AM..

That and the $50 per day ACH limit gets lifted after 6 months of membership...

I have never had a $50 per day ACH limit from day one. From the beginning I had the normal $5k per day ACH limit...

There definitely is tiered membership..

I have had a $5k per day ACH limit from day one as well as overdraft protection, deposit anywhere facilities and no holds whatsoever on deposits..

I am not sure if the tiers are related to credit score or military status / rank...

Right, but those who do generally have it lifted after 6 months...

I think it's luck..

When I first joined I had 740+ with a couple of baddies..

The CPU wouldn't stop approving me..

However, the u/w saw I was a lower tier and did the snatch backs...