August 04, 2007
A trick to bump up your credit score
Here's a neat trick to repair the hits your FICO score takes when you apply for credit cards. A technique called bumpage, or just "B", takes advantage of the way credit reporting agencies calculate your credit score.
When you subscribe to a credit report service and pull your own credit report, that is noted on your report as a "soft pull". Now if you do enough soft pulls, they will eventually "bump off" off the "hard pulls" since the agencies only keep track of a certain number of total pulls.
Why should you care? Well, hard pulls, which are recorded every time you apply for a credit card or a loan, stay on your credit report for 24 months and can lower your FICO credit score by anywhere from 5 to 20 points. Soft pulls, however, do not affect your score. That means you can bump up your credit score by replacing hard pulls.
From my hard-core investigation (okay, five minutes worth of google searches), it looks like this only works with TransUnion and Equifax reports.
Posted by brian at 05:30 AM | Comments (2)
August 01, 2007
Get money back when airfares drop
Airlines issue refunds when the price falls after you buy a ticket. The catch, though, is that you have to request the refund while the lower price is in effect.
Now "rollovers" can only be claimed when you buy the ticket directly from the airline and not from web sites like Travelocity, Expedia, or Orbitz. Airlines that offer vouchers for the full price difference include:
Other airlines will offer vouchers or cash after deducting change fees. Since airfares can change several times a day and most of us don't have time to monitor websites continuously until we fly, it's no wonder that airlines actually issue very few vouchers.
That's where Yapta.com comes in. It helps customers get rollover refunds by tracking fares on specific flights after you buy a ticket, then alerting you if the price drops. (Actually, you can use Yapta to track fares on specific flights before you buy a ticket, too). Neat, huh? It's free to use and works for a ton of domestic airlines (AirTran, Alaska, American, America West, ATA, Continental, Delta, Frontier, JetBlue, United, and US Airways). With 275 people using Yapta as beta testers, the average voucher was about $85.
Related websites include Farecast.com and Farecompare.com. The first site shows ticket price forecasts, giving out "buy" and "wait" recommendations on airfares. The second site lets you look at historical prices to help you decide if fares might drop in the future. These are great sites, but I really like Yapta because it allows me to purchase tickets right away without having to worry about paying too much or playing the guessing game of when fares might drop. It's price protection that speeds up the whole process.
Oh yeah, how does Yapta make money? After all, the service is free for customers. Actually, I'm not sure, but I think it's trying to get money from the airlines by saying that it may spur sales at higher price levels and build customer loyalty by the issuance of vouchers. Good luck to them.
If you use Yapta, remember you must act quickly. Some fares only drop for a few hours before bouncing back up again.
Posted by brian at 06:30 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack