Does Chase Credit Journey® help or hurt my credit score?
Chase Credit Journey, a free online tool, gives you access to your credit score and resources to understand it and help reach your personal finance goals. You might be wondering if Chase Credit Journey affects your score—have no fear, using this platform (whether you’re checking your score or using its resources and services) won’t impact your credit score. Rather, this tool will help guide you on your journey to understanding what a credit score means, what factors affect it and what steps you can take to improve it.
Does Chase Credit Journey affect my credit score?
When you enroll in Chase Credit Journey, you’ll be able to check your credit score anytime you’d like. If you check your score frequently, it will get refreshed every 7 days, and if infrequently, it’ll update monthly. Either way, your score will be regularly updated so you can see if there have been any changes.
You might have heard of “credit checks” before and may be wondering if checking your credit on Chase Credit Journey will impact your score. To clarify, credit checks (or inquires) can be done by a lender or issuer who wants to get an idea of your credit history and creditworthiness. For example, you may have your credit checked when you go to buy a home. This kind of check is called a hard inquiry—this will impact your score, and the more hard inquiries you have, the more points you may be sacrificing.
But don’t worry—with Chase Credit Journey, checking your score won’t hurt your credit score. This is because you are not running a hard inquiry. Rather, you will get an updated credit score that you can monitor for free.
Keep in mind that there are many other factors that could impact your score. Let’s explore some of these more below.
What affects my credit score?
To better understand what affects your credit score, let’s explore the factors that go into generating it. The VantageScore® 3.0 consists of the following factors:
- Extremely influential—Total credit usage, balance and available credit
- Highly influential--Credit mix and experience
- Moderately influential—Payment history
- Less influential--Age of credit history
- Less influential--New accounts opened
A good credit score demonstrates a high level of creditworthiness, which means lenders trust in your ability to pay back loans and make consistent payments. And since a potential lender or issuer will see you as a lower risk, you may be granted lower annual percentage interest rates (APRs) and receive more benefits.
Other factors that affect your credit score include negative remarks, late payments and failure to pay off debts. Let’s explore these in greater detail below.
What hurts my credit score?
Your credit score can be negatively impacted if you receive derogatory remarks on your report. These items include bankruptcy, charge-offs or foreclosures. These remarks can last up to 7 years or more on your report.
As mentioned earlier, your score can suffer if there’s a hard inquiry on your credit report, though this shouldn’t impact your score dramatically.
Additionally, your score could be affected by a failure to make your payments on time. For example, if you don’t pay your minimum credit card bill by its due date, you could see your score drop. The higher your score, the more points you may lose.
What helps improve my credit score?
It can be intimidating to know that your credit score is vulnerable to many factors. On the other hand, if you make frequent payments on time, your score can go the other way—indeed, regular timely payments and a healthy credit mix can increase your score.
Monitoring your score with Chase Credit Journey is another excellent way to start to improving your score. When you see what kinds of activity are affecting your credit, you can take action and make adjustments. For example, maybe there’s an error on your report that you want to dispute so that you can bring your score back up. Chase Credit Journey offers a dispute guide to help you achieve this.
Chase Credit Journey educates you on the principles of creditworthiness, mapping out realistic ways you can make better purchasing decisions and smarter choices that will result in an improved credit score over time. Patience and consistency are key to improving your score. With Chase Credit Journey, you’ll get access to tips about how to boost your score and services that will help protect it, such as credit and identity monitoring.
Even if you already have a fair credit score, Chase Credit Journey can help you discover different tips and methods to take your score to the next level and help improve your financial savviness.
Boosting your credit score takes time, but Chase Credit Journey fully empowers you to make the kind of smart, savvy decisions that will set you on the path to financial wellness—and an improved credit score!
