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When you click “Check Your Rate,” PenFed does a soft credit pull to check the financing you’re eligible for — that does not affect your credit score. Once you accept an offer and rate, we will perform a hard credit pull to verify your information. When we perform a hard credit inquiry, your credit score may lower slightly for a short period of time.

When you consolidate your credit card debt with a personal loan, you have one single fixed low-rate payment. You will not incur any fees, as long as you make your monthly payments on time, while a balance transfer almost always does. 

With a credit card balance transfer, your rate may start out lower under a special promotion, but it will usually increase at some point, possibly increasing your minimum payment as well as increasing the amount of interest you will have to pay.

You generally cannot consolidate student loans under a debt consolidation loan. You can, however, either refinance your federal and/or private student loans, or consolidate all of your federal student loan debt under one federal loan. The rates for student-loan-specific refinancing and consolidation are generally lower, overall, than those for personal loans, so it’s a good way to handle educational debt.

If you only have credit card debt, a credit card consolidation loan is probably your best bet. But if you have other types of debt such as personal loans from another lender or other eligible installment loans, a debt consolidation loan would be the way to go.