The key credit hack is no secret! In fact, you may have heard someone say practice good credit habits, and you’ll have a high 700+ credit score. While that statement is true, it’s very vague and not actionable.
So, how does that translate into a higher credit score? That’s why we’ve created this post. Instead of giving you a laundry list of things you can do, there are three main buckets many of these so-called credit score hacks fall under:
- Credit Hack by Subtraction
- Credit Score Hacks by Addition
- Hack Credit Score by Action
Now let’s dive in!
Credit Hack by Subtraction
The main focus of this credit score hack category is removing negative items that are hurting your score. Some negative items include late payments, collections, charge-off accounts.
You get the gist. Anything that appears as a delinquent or derogatory item on your report falls in this category.
If you have any negative items on your report, you should start with these credit hacks.
Get caught up on late/past due accounts
If any of your credit accounts report that your payment is late, that’s your #1 priority.
Having a single late payment on your credit count hurts your score since payment history accounts for 35% of your credit score. If you’re more than 60 days late, you’ll have to pay more than your usual payment to get caught up.
You can call the creditor or bank to confirm how much you need to make to get caught up or you can also log in to the lenders’ website to check and to make payment online. Most online banking can let you know exactly how much your minimum payment needs to be.
Boost credit score overnight average estimate: 20-30 points
Pay down your credit cards with a high balance to lower your card usage
Your credit card usage has a high impact on your score. So if any of your card utilization is over 100%, meaning you’ve used more than your limit, your score will see a big decline, even if your total or overall usage is low.
This credit hack you should do is pay down all of your cards that are over 100% usage down to under 74% or lower. If you have more funds, your next goal is under 49%, then 29%, 9%, and 0%.
Of course, it will be a lot easier to pay off a 120% usage on a $500 limit vs a $2,000 limit. But your first step is to make sure all the cards reporting on your credit are under 74%.
Keep in mind the lower your usage, the better.
Boost credit score overnight average estimate: 0-60 points
Delete collections or charge off account from your credit report
Did you know you can get it removed if you have an accurate collection or charge off account on your report, and it’s completely legal?
Collection companies are usually willing to accept a fraction of the amount in exchange for deleting the items from your report. This process is called “pay to delete.”
You should reach out to the collection company to negotiate a “pay for delete” agreement with them. They will usually agree to stop reporting the collection to the credit bureau or update the account status.
For the best result, reach out to them around the end of the month. Since they have sales quotas, they’re more flexible than at the beginning of the month. Also, only make a payment when you’ve received a letter in writing sent to your email that states they will delete the account from your report.
Other things that work well if they refuse to delete the account are updating the status from a collection status to either “paid in full” or “paid as agreed” even if you negotiated for less than the full amount.
Most people may find that they’ve completed the credit repair, but their scores are still low. I know you might be thinking, how is it possible that all my negative items are removed from my account, but I still have a 600 credit score. The next section will answer why.
Boost credit score overnight average estimate: 25-30 points
Did you miss a payment? Ask your bank to waive the late payment
If you accidentally miss a payment, try to catch up as soon as possible. The good news is that late payments less than 28 days old typically do not show up on your report.
If your payment was more than 30 days late, then your lender is likely reporting it to the credit bureaus. Call the lender up to see if they can waive the late payment based on your past payment history.
If you’ve been a good customer and rarely missed payments, your bank might be willing to forgive the late payment. You can also send a goodwill letter asking them to overlook the late payments if they say no over the phone.
Boost credit score overnight average estimate: 5-15 points
Dispute inaccurate data on your report
Check your credit report for any inaccuracies, such as collections, hard inquiries, late payments that you made on time, duplicate accounts.
Your credit report has all the information you need, and if any derogatory information that is more than seven years old is still reflecting on your credit, you can reach out to the credit bureaus to have that corrected.
You have the right to dispute inaccurate information on your credit report.
So, you should send dispute letters to the creditor reporting inaccurate information on your credit report. The creditor has up to 30 days to investigate the issue and correct it if they cannot verify the information.
Boost credit score overnight average estimate: varies
Credit Score Hacks by Addition
While the score hacks by subtraction raise your score by elimination, credit hacks by addition conjoin. For the 45 million adult Americans without a credit score, this section is where you should focus on.
Build credit your credit with someone else’s good credit
I know it sounds like a scam, but it’s how parents help their kids build credit by adding the child as an authorized user to their account. The concept is called piggyback credit or tradelines for sale.
Becoming an authorized user is the fastest way to build credit and boost credit score overnight, especially for people with no credit score or those with a thin file, i.e. five open accounts or less.
Instead of waiting years to build your credit, you can add years of credit history to your credit profile in a few weeks or even days by piggybacking on someone else’s good credit.
You can learn how tradelines work to see if your credit is a good fit for one.
Boost credit score overnight average estimate: 10-60 points
Why wouldn’t you give this proven credit strategy a try?
Apply for a credit-builder or secure card
If you have over six months before you’ll need to apply for any credit account and do not have up to 2 credit accounts, applying for a secured credit card can help you start building credit.
The banks are more open to giving someone without a credit history a secure card because it reduces their risk since you can only spend as much as you had funded in that account.
However, the major downside is that most banks will not convert that secure card to an unsecured card. So, it’s best to only apply for one secure card to build your credit over six months, and they apply for an unsecured card after that.
Remember, this strategy works well for people with a long time horizon. If you need to apply for credit in less than six months, authorized user tradelines will be your best bet.
Boost credit score overnight average estimate: varies
You can apply for a credit builder loan
Credit-builder loans are typically for small amounts, such as a few hundred to a thousand dollars, designed for borrowers who have difficulty obtaining traditional loans.
Borrowers must meet certain eligibility requirements to be approved for a credit-builder loan, and the terms and interest rate vary depending on the lender.
You first make all the monthly payments and then receive the “loan disbursement” once you have already paid off the loan. Unlike a traditional loan, credit builder loans have a saving feature.
Credit-builder loans are low risk for lenders, which is why even if you have thin credit, you can still qualify, provided your income is sufficient to make the monthly payments.
Boost credit score overnight average estimate: varies
Add your rent history to your credit
If you don’t have any credit, having your rental history is a good way to establish credit. You can call your landlord and ask that they report your history or use services that can reach out to your landlord on your behalf.
The main upside is you wouldn’t have to go into debt to build your history. However, the downside is that rental history may not report on all three bureaus. Consider adding a tradeline to your report to help out if that happens.
Now that you know how to add positive accounts to your history let’s share show credit hacks on how to continue to maintain your score to the 700s and beyond.
Boost credit score overnight average estimate: varies
Hack Credit Score by Action
Whether you fall under the credit hack by subtraction or addition, this hack credit score by action section is for everyone!
We’ll cover the things you need to do on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis so you can develop those good credit habits everyone talks about.
Increase your credit card limits
Increasing your credit card limit can help reduce your card usage and overall credit card utilization.
To increase your chances of getting approval for a credit limit increase, use below 30% of the card for at least three months and request a boost if you haven’t applied for one within the previous six months.
Check with your credit issuer to see whether they need to do a hard inquiry or soft inquiry.
If they do a hard hit on your credit, you may want to weigh the benefits against the cost. For someone with high usage, if they get approved, their score will likely increase because the limit increase will offset the negative impact of the hard inquiry.
But if you don’t have high usage and they pull your report, your score will likely go down because lower use wouldn’t offset the cost of the hard inquiry—just something to keep in mind.
You can request a credit line increase online or over the phone if possible. Be prepared to provide some financial information and to explain why you are asking for additional credit.
Getting started is as easy as 1, 2, 3.
Use tradelines to lower your overall credit utilization
If your request to increase you didn’t get approved for the limit credit increase or the lender requires a hard inquiry, then adding a high limit tradeline can help you accomplish the same thing.
Pay off credit cards with low balance accounts
To improve your credit score, your goal is to have a $0 balance on most of your credit cards. However, before you apply for any debt, have all of your credit cards at zero balance if possible.
One common reason people get denied credit especially unsecured cards, personal loans, and lines of credit, is having too many accounts with a balance. So, to reduce your overall credit obligation, focus on the card with the biggest balance first.
Pay more than the minimum payment every month only if it does not cause a constraint on your budget. Keep paying the card each month until you have it paid off, then tackle the next highest balance while paying the minimum balance on any other credit cards you might have.
Time your payments before the statement date
Your due date is the day your minimum monthly payment is due. Whereas your statement date is the day, the credit bureaus receive your updated usage on your card.
To ensure that your credit report shows low credit utilization, time your payments so that you have a $0 balance or a lower card usage on your statement date. Most times, you’ll have to make the payment from your credit card online banking before 5 PM your time to count towards your statement. So if you don’t have automatic payments set up, create a reminder on your phone, so you don’t forget.
Essentially, what you’re doing is instead of waiting for your statement to arrive and then paying your balance on the due date a few weeks later, you need to pay your balance to $0 before the statement closing date.
Get a rapid rescore from your mortgage lender
The rapid rescore credit score hack can be an extremely valuable tool for those who need to update their credit report quickly during a home buying process.
A mortgage broker can manually recalculate your score based on your completed actions, such as paying down your usage or deleting a collection account before the credit bureaus update their record.
To get a rapid rescore, you must have good credit and meet specific eligibility requirements. You need to provide the mortgage lender proof that you’ve satisfied the request—for example, a document showing that the collection company has deleted the account from your record.
Then they may decide to update your score and offer a lower interest rate to your loan based on this information.
Credit Score Hacks FAQ
The 3 Key Secret Credit Hacks to Boost Credit Score Overnight
To summarize all the information we covered in this post, your best credit score hacks boils down to doing these three things:
- Remove negative items from your report
- Add aged or seasoned positive accounts to your credit
- Keep your credit card usage low every day
I hope you enjoyed reading this post. If you found the content valuable, you should consider sharing it with someone you think might benefit from reading it. They’ll be glad you did.
Get started here if you’re ready to put tradelines to work for you.