you don't have to be military at all all you need is five dollars to join this Credit Union the first thing with PenFed is there's no hard inquiry to join the credit union with Navy Federal of course everybody's going to say that the flagship is their cop car with pen fed it's the Pathfinder Card I have both cards there is no annual fee on their top car Dante Sledge is one of the few people I even trust in this credit card game in this video he's going to explain why PenFed may be a better option than Navy Federal I hope you guys are excited and ready to take some notes on today's interview as you all I'm sure have been talking about Navy Federal for quite some time but here's the deal today you're going to learn why PenFed is actually it may be a better option than Navy Federal Credit Union but again you guys don't have to hear that from me I want you guys to hear it from directly from the source I've been watching this young man for quite some time and he's most definitely been delivering some gems not just about Navy Federal but also about PenFed as well too but either way I won't take take up too much of his time let's go ahead and introduce you guys to Mr Dante slash Dante are you here with us today yes sir yes sir glad to be here Calvin all right awesome awesome well first off man I want to say I appreciate you and all in your time taking away from your schedule your family uh just to do this particular interview man because listen you got to get some people riled up man because people listen it's almost like uh Beyonce's beehive when it comes to talking about Navy Federal uh but either way um I've been of course watching some of your information man and I think that you know I was like you know what let's go ahead and talk about you know why you feel that pen fed is a better option but before we go too deep into it let's actually find out just a little bit about yourself man and so how did you find yourself even uh in this situation where you're learning about credit cards and credit unions and stuff like that in general this is a long story I mean I'm gonna cut it short as possible all right uh a long time ago I'm one of those people I'm a regular ordinary person I I didn't learn about credit cards I didn't learn about credit score going up and uh I screwed up all of that stuff I brought myself to YouTube in order to show people that when you fall down you can get back up that's right I started off with uh whenever when I could remember my first credit score I had a 760. I screwed it up to where I was in the 400s I'm back right now over 7 40 on all credit bills so this is why I'm bringing this to uh to YouTube right now you're touching a major point just now is a lot of times we start at a certain score but what you're saying is that hey we've all been there right we've made mistakes and you know whether we were younger whether we didn't know we were doing and you know but you can most definitely bounce right back and not just that because we'll get into how you did a major comeback and then of course congratulations on getting your 32 your 32nd credit card but we'll dive into that most definitely a little bit later inside the interview but let's go straight into it man I know why people are here let's go straight into it so now why in your opinion why do you feel that pen fed is a better option or company be a better option uh than Navy Federal well I'm going to speak from what I'm what I specialize in and that's credit cards the first thing with 10 fed is there's no hard inquiry to join the credit union unlike Navy Federal so if you're if you're with Navy Federal and you've been with them for a while you apply for a credit card they're going to give you another hard inquiry just to get that credit card whereas with pen fed you didn't get this hard inquiry in the beginning you're only going to get it when you apply for your first credit card and even after that you have 30 30 more days to apply for more products whether it be a HELOC personal line of credit another credit card that's all on one inquiry so that's one reason why I like uh Pen Fair now I'm not going to go all the way on the olive branch and say that can fit is so much greater than Navy Federal because Navy Federal has great cars yeah they have great interest rates you know whether you're talking about mortgages or I don't have a mortgage all along with them but they have great interest rate I've looked at both Credit Unions will help you with auto insurance right health insurance accidental death insurance but here's one thing that I can tell you about PenFed with Ken fed I'm looking at the two top cars with Navy Federal of course everybody's going to say that the flagship is their cop car with pen fed it's the Pathfinder Card they're both travel cards right with uh with uh the flagship I have both cars okay the flagship card you get three points per dollar for travel okay the Pathfinder Card give four points per dollar for travel you have a higher sign up bonus on the Pathfinder Card and not only that here here's the superpower of Penfield yeah if you're a former military or current military or you just have an honors event managed checking account there is no annual fee on their top car right the annual fee is 95 it's automatically waived just for you having this checking account there's nothing special about the checking account it's in a checking account that you keep 500 you have to keep an average of 500 in the technical account if you can if you can manage that yeah you're talking about a a credit card that has uh like I say it's 4.4 on traffic right you get all the things that you would get with any other uh high-end or something some even some of the lowering uh travel cars where you get free Global Entry well a global entry and TSA pre-check credit 100 credit you get a priority pass launch of access but here's the thing like I say it's a 95 car you get a hundred dollars uh travel credit annually with this car that watches the 95 even if you do not have the honors Advantage checking account or have military experience wow man so that that's where that's where I was like I say I'm a credit card guy so I'm looking at it from a credit card perspective yeah okay gotcha gotcha but no I mean you hit you hit on a couple things one is that you know that annual fee they're waiving that so that's automatically saving you money um that travel credit right so now how does that travel credit work is that something that you could just use for anything that's travel related like Ubers or hotels or something like that well it's um it's basically for flights flights and hotels they have their own travel portal like American Express how to try to portal and Chase have their travel portal and the same thing with Navy Federal you know you want to use if you want to use their points towards travel you kind of using the travel affordable okay right but with the flagship card at the end of the day you're still paying the 49 for the flagship card all right gotcha you have uh you they also have uh the power cab the power cast rewards card that I also have just by being an honors Advantage member instead of getting 1.5 um cash back you're two percent but it's just about having this checking account or being messed or being military and here's another superpower is you don't have to be military at all all you need is five dollars to join this Credit Union you open up the account with five dollar savings account and you have access to the credit union wow that's huge because a lot of people the biggest question that we are that I always see is so many people still don't know how to get you know how to join uh you know Navy Federal outside of you know obviously having you know a military connection or something no something like that and then of course we know that there's ways that people been doing all types of stuff to get inside of Navy Federal and listen you guys heard it directly from Dante there are other credit unions out there similar to Navy Federal right and that are easier to join you know and they have strong credit note cards as well too so what what do you think the average limits that people are kind of seeing because we know of course we know uh Navy Federal seems to be that the house of high limits everyone keeps saying but just saying Hey listen pinped got some juice too yeah very okay on my very first day of membership with pen fed I applied for the podcast card because I recently got the Pathfinder Card recently but I have the podcast card for maybe two years now okay the very first day that I that I joined the credit union I applied for is got a 25 000 limit day one see day one excuse me and we talk we're not talking about uh 800 credit score you know we're not talking about the 850 credit score at that time I might have been low 700s or somewhere around 700. okay yeah wow that's reasonable that honestly that's reasonable and that's realistic see that's real because see that's that's what people are looking for and a lot enough things people are always talking about higher limits and things of that so but I keep telling people listen are you ready for that right are you ready for that because sometimes people have had you know a five thousand dollar limit five hundred dollar limit you know a 300 limit but they want a higher limit it's like listen you got to make sure that you can control that you know as well so man thanks for sharing that part as well too so now let's go into the next piece is now when we talked when we first talked you were just at about 30 credit cards now you just got your 30 second credit card so now how did you acquire these cars and how do you manage them okay uh have you ever heard of an app called uh Max Rewards you know what's funny it's funny you mentioned that because we literally I just talked to a good friend of mine and we did a video and of course she mentioned that as well too that was my first time hearing about that uh but she mentioned that as well too so maxrewards.com so yeah so now is that that's essentially how you manage it that's essentially how I imagine well this there's a few cars that I'm gonna always have on me at all times I'm always going to have my American Express gold card on them because it's a food card you get the majority of your points from food so that's a that's a large expense for probably everyone right so I always have I'm always going to have that card on me and there's certain cards that I'm never gonna care I'm never going to carry my American Express Platinum Card unless I'm driving right because that's that's one way I think of things uh the Navy Federal Flagship card it's two points on everything right there's three points on travel but two points on everything so I always have that card because if that if I run into something that I can't get points on there's always that car yeah there's always that car so I can get two points per dollar on anything that I'm spending on but with Max rewards it tells you which card to use where to maximize points and it's a very easy app you just basically just sign into it sign into your accounts and all your code all your cards load into it so wow wow man that's amazing man you know listen listen you guys heard it from another credit card expert himself he says listen if you have you know x amount of cards you guys need to strongly consider using Max Awards and they're gonna stop paying me to talk to talk about them now but but no man it's amazing that something's even out there and I'm sure some other apps out there as well too that's similar uh that's helping people kind of navigate you know through this process because I'm sure people are like man okay I'm going to the grocery store which car should I use I'm about to travel go out the country which car should I use you know so and again that just shows you how to truly maximize what you already have so that's amazing man that's amazing so what are your favorite cars like what are you like your top three cars that you would say your favorite out of 32. all right wait a minute I want to go back and touch back on that laptop okay there's a car called The the curved credit card a lot of people probably have never heard of it yeah it's what it what this card essentially does it can host any Mastercard or Discover card it can't do Visa or or American Express but it can host any Mastercard or Discover card it's a credit card itself that you load credit cards onto right right yeah it's like credit card itself I have a video up about it okay but you reload you load your credit cards onto the curved card yeah and like I say any Mastercard or Discover Card yeah no you're familiar with the built MasterCard yep well the build Mountain car you know they have what they call Rent day that's right on the first every month all their points are elevated and doubled right yep with the Curve card they have this thing called go back in time where you can charge on any of those cards that you have loaded on there yeah and essentially move them to another dating time on another car what so here's your gym yeah you get the built card yeah you get the curb card you load your MasterCard and Discover Cards onto that one so when you run into a situation when you when you're you're buying dinner on the 20th of the month or you're buying you at you're out you know at a restaurant on the 16th of the month yeah you can go into the curb app and take that charge and move it to the first of the month on the build card and double your points yeah it's one thing a lot of people don't know a lot of people don't know about now listen I've never heard that so it's that's curve you said it's like c-u-r-v-e c-u-r-v-e the urv listen Dante giving y'all the game today because see listen these are the types of things that people have to research you know what I mean and so for you to just you know narrow that down and say listen guys you can you know have it all into one that's insane and I keep you from carrying so many cars it's one card that holds all these other cars right man that's huge that is huge okay that's what's up so now okay all right so now I'm assuming so is that one of your favorite cars then or is that in the in the top three yeah yeah it's in the top three it's in the top three uh America Express Gold Card of course because like I say you have to eat right and I and it's probably my most I won't even say that it's my favorite car but it's definitely my most used car right yeah and then my favorite card um is probably believe it or not the Hilton Aspire card the reason is Hilton inspired card is one of my favorite cars is because first of all it gives you automatic Hilton Diamond status there's no other credit card or hotel card or a travel card that gives you top level status of any hotel or Airline or Airline chain except for the Hilton Inspire card and on top of that you get a 250 dollar annual Airline Credit which if you watch my if you watch one of the videos on my channel you will see how you and you that that credit for airline tickets it's supposed to be for incidentals but you can use it though to actually purchase airline tickets uh and you also get a 250 annual uh uh Resort credit at any Hilton property wow okay all right one more thing yeah there's also a free life certificate so okay another thing is a lot of the hotel um credit cards you can they might give you a free night certificate but it's capped with with the Aspire card if you want to stay at the Waldorf Astoria and that hotel is not sold out you can stay there you want to stay in the Conrad the lxr wow 1500 Lightroom 800 night room depending on the time of year yeah you can book it with that free night certificate so yeah that's why this is my favorite card and then of course the American Express Platinum Card everybody know about that card so I really got to get all into it but now man that's the listen that's absolutely amazing and listen because I've been seeing y'all travel man yeah man hey that's my whole that's that that's that's the majority of my game with credit cards you know um if you if if you if you look at my video you'll see a a beginning of a lot of them I tell people man first of all I don't recommend everybody to get these many credit cards right right I do not recommend it and second thing is if you can't afford it you cannot cannot afford it do not charge anything that you would not pay for regularly right you know if it's not in your normal spending do not do it but if you if it is in your normal spending I recommend that you put it on a credit card so you can get the points and you can travel for free just like I do because like I say I'm just a regular ordinary person yeah I'm not doing anything special out here I'll I'll apply for credit cards I get them I hit the sign up bonus because the sign up bonus is very important you're never going to make as many points using the card in the first two years probably as you would as hitting a sign up on this so yeah and that's how basically we travel for free credit card sign up bonuses free night certificates uh you get Airline you may get an airline card and get free checked bags to get on there yeah yeah and then you also have to mix in your cash back cards because when you go on the trip you can't eat points and Miles you can't buy Excursion with points a mile you can't pay for souvenirs for points right yeah yeah so I'm mixing cash back as well that's what's up man listen you most definitely have been maximizing like I try my best that's for sure man that's for sure listen I hope you guys again are taking advantage of these gems that he's dropping because you know so many people have questions about different types of credit cards and what they can do with them and and the way you just broke that down uh because I'm sure some of these people are considering some of these cards that you're mentioning and you know but it but again like you hit on a very good point you said listen don't just don't charge something that you wouldn't normally charge see that takes discipline because people aren't used to having these higher limits and man when you're traveling it's like man I want to go from I want to get this type of room I want to go on this excursion right you know but at the same time you got to know which card to use because like you said you can't eat the miles right so and you're using those particular cards for different types of situations man so uh great most definitely some takeaways on that one for sure so now now let's go into um how you've been truly maximizing your American Express Platinum Card let's get into that so now let's go into how you've been getting airline tickets with your American Express plan all right now this goes for the American Express Platinum and also the Hilton inspired car the American Express Platinum has a 200 Airline of credit right is that per year per year okay per year okay because you got to keep in mind this card has a 695 annual fee right right so and if if I'll tell anybody if you travel a lot look at that annual fee with a grain of salt yes it's 695 dollars but you got to think about what you get out of the 695 when you go to the airport American Express has the largest Airport network of any credit card issue right yeah domestically Chase has one one has one Airport lost Capital One has one airport lounge American Express has I believe there's 14 Centurion lounges that have Escape lounges they have clouds of Premium lounges you have priority paths lounges there's so many laws you can get in with American Express right yeah so when you go to an airport lounge it would change the entire experience of the stress of going traveling okay we're gonna go in the airport you know yeah you've been drinking for free in these lounges you know yeah sometimes sometimes they can be crowded but if you say for instance you're flying Delta because you have the American Express Platinum car you go to a centurion lounge or the Delta Sky Club right so you have your choice of different things to go to really didn't know that yeah wow my favorite credit of the American Express Platinum Card is the five hotels and resorts ready now so so a 200 credit with a specific um there are higher end hotels but but when you use this credit you get a 12 o'clock you got a 12 p.m um check-in okay 4 P.M checkout you get a hundred dollar credit uh to use in in these uh properties you get free you you get free breakfast for two right because if you go with two you want to make sure both people are on a reservation because if not they're just going to give it to you okay right yeah so you want to make sure even if you go by yourself for two people on the recipes all right because you still will have that right yeah and then you have the uh a lot of people laugh about the Walmart plus credits but I'm gonna tell you something about this Walmart Plus Credit tell us you get 10 off gas right you can test it on down to Exxon Mogul and Walmart right so the the way that I maximize that is yeah I use a card that gives points for gas right whatever car you and then I use the Walmart Plus in order to take the tencent off so you're getting the points and the air back off of the off of the gas man right yeah see and you know what I like about you know what I like about that these are things that you're going to get anyway you're already great use gas you're already gonna use gas right and then when you touched on that annual fee yeah it's higher than most right right at the end of the day if you're maximizing that and you're using that I mean just the airline ticket alone man and then of course with the lounges and things of that sort that makes the traveling process a lot easier then man because listen I'm I'm a kid Dodger I'm trying to dodge some everybody else's kids you know what I'm talking about right but either way uh that most definitely makes it a lot easier for sure man so listen guys I'm telling you I'm finding the sources you know for you all so you all can just truly take advantage of this information because some people have listen Dante and I know people some people got this card and they're not using it right they're complaining about it or whatever case may be or you guys probably didn't know didn't know you know so but that is huge because I'm sure some new you all have been comparing this card to other cards on that list so listen man we most definitely appreciate you uh breaking that down so Dante if we were looking to learn more about um you know just like uh your your channel and some of the other videos that you have I know of course I I put it up here you know make sure you guys go ahead and then follow uh as well subscribe to Dante uh on YouTube but is there any other free resources or anything like that that you have access to so right now I'm just doing YouTube okay I'm gonna Branch off and do some other things from there yeah we're here for listen we're here keep me posted okay yo absolutely Calvin absolutely listen we both we most definitely love supporting channels like yours man because uh it's honestly people like you that's given uh the gems that's given the delivery that's given the game and you know a lot of people again they have aspirations to get these types of cards and to learn about these types of things so man that is honestly huge man before we leave out of here uh what are some things that you would uh just some words of advice for someone who is literally this they're rebuilding their credit right now and they're just they're like man I can't see the light right now I can't see myself going from uh not having the best credit score to get a you know x amount of credit cards what word of advice would you leave with them be patient learn as much as you can know about know about this curve if you want to get into credit cards know about the credit card game before you get into it that's right don't don't make the mistake I made in the beginning and just getting in and using it as if that's their money with my money you know learn about this game understand that you don't want to the credit card issuers make money every time you swipe that card you do not want to pay interest to them like I say before if you can't afford it you can't afford it don't charge it if you can't afford it use it as if it's a debit card and you will see your credit grow as you manage your credit wisely make sure you guys go ahead and subscribe to Dante's Channel get them you know get that information you know of course get these gems he's dropping he's only going to keep growing guys you know and as he keeps learning we're most definitely be learning with you as well thanks again Dante thanks Calvin