Free FICO Scores for Barclaycard Cardholders

March 24, 2014 By Million Mile Secrets

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You can get your TransUnion FICO credit score for free, if you’re a Barclaycard Cardholder!

Free FICO Scores For Barclays Cardholders — I Still Have a High Credit Score Despite Having Lots of Credit Cards!

What Is a Credit Score?

Your credit score is usually a 3 digit number the banks use to predict whether you’ll be paying back loans. Fair Issac Corporation (FICO) issues scores from 300 to 850.

In the US there are 3 main credit bureaus:

Equifax
TransUnion
Experian

What’s a Good Number?

The higher your score, the better…up to certain point.

A score of 675 is better than a score of 575. And a score of 760 gets you access to lower interest rates than a score of 675.

A score of 760 can get you the same low rates as those with a score above 760. So you don’t need a score higher than 760, except to brag. So when applying for credit cards, it’s OK if your credit score temporarily goes down a few points. And usually being approved for new cards increases your score in the long run!

How Is Your Credit Score Calculated?

According to the FICO website, your credit score is determined by:

35% Payment History
30% Amounts Owed
15% Length of Credit History
10% New Credit
10% Types of Credit

Your Payment History (paying your debts on time) is the most important part of your credit score. So it’s a good idea to pay your bills on time.

Amounts Owed is the next most important part of your score. It’s okay to have some debt. But if most of your available credit is being used (known as a high credit utilization), it could mean you have more debt than you should and that you might not pay back your loans.

So it is very important NOT to max out your credit cards so you can have a low utilization rate. For example, if my credit limit is $10,000 I try to keep my charges under $1,000 to have a utilization rate of 10% or lower.

Your length of credit history is partially determined by the average age of your accounts. So consider getting no-annual fee cards that you’ll hold for many years.

Free FICO Score

If you have one of the following Barclaycard credit cards, you can get your TransUnion FICO score for free:

Barclaycard Carnival
Barclaycard Frontier
Barclaycard Lufthansa
Barclaycard NFL
Barclaycard Rewards
Barclaycard Ring™ Mastercard®
Barclaycard US Airways
Wyndham Rewards Visa

The Barclaycard Arrival Plus® World Elite Mastercard® is a cash back travel card with no foreign transaction fees. You earn “miles” but they aren’t transferrable to airline miles. But you can redeem them for statement credits at 0.5 cents per mile (poor value) or 1.1 cents per mile if you redeem for travel.

You earn 2 miles for every $1 you spend so you’re getting 2% cash back for each purchase. And you get an extra 10% of your miles back when you redeem for travel. So you’re earning ~2.2 cents per $1 spent on travel expenses or about 2.2% back when redeemed for travel.

You can get 40,000 miles which is worth $440 in travel or a $200 statement credit. Here’s my review of the Barclaycard Arrival Plus® World Elite Mastercard®.