In 2017 Chase released a free, credit monitoring service called Chase Credit Journey. A credit monitoring service is a platform that allows you to review and keep tabs on your credit report and score. Show Why would you want to keep tabs on your credit report and score, you ask? It’s because your credit report and score are what affects the way banks look at you when you apply for a credit card, mortgage, or loan, and these are things you keep bumping into, whether you like it or not. So yes, it’s important to often check in on your credit report. Knowing that, is Chase Credit Journey an accurate enough platform to help you do so? Chase Credit Journey is a tool Chase offers that lets you view and monitor your credit report and credit score. They get all your credit information from Experian, one of the 3 well-known credit bureaus. Chase Credit Journey is set up as an online account which you can find by either visiting the link at Chase Credit Journey or, if you already have a Chase online account, by accessing the tool from there, or by getting onto your Chase banking mobile app. You get to create your own account by setting up a username and password. You can keep logging in to view and review your credit report and score, which will update on a weekly basis. Besides for your credit report and score, Chase Credit Journey has additional features, listed below.
These are good features but beware. Chase Credit Journey is not always smooth sailing and may stall, provide random scores, and not update properly. Disclaimer so you know what you’re in for. Now that we’ve explored the features, I may have wet your appetite. That’s good because there’s nothing standing in your way. Chase Credit Journey is open to everyone. Come one call all! You do not have to be a previous Chase customer to create a Chase Credit Journey account, and you don’t have to become one either. This is a major advantage to Chase Credit Journey. To sign up if you are not a Chase customer, you can visit https://www.chase.com/personal/credit-cards/chase-credit-journey to create your account. If you are a pre-existing Chase customer, you can log on to your online Chase account or to the Chase mobile banking app, and head over to Check Credit Score/Chase Credit Journey to get into the platform. If you’re a Chase business customer only though, you can log on to your Chase Credit Journey account through the desktop version only. More than being available to one and all, by opening an account with Chase Credit Journey you stand no loss because it is completely free! Free to sign up for and free to use. It’s even free if you choose to stop using it. Looks like Chase, the big bank and huge financial institution, has its many other ways to earn revenue and doesn’t rely on earning back from this nice, little credit monitoring platform. As a society, when a product or item is offered free, some of us tend to either stay away from it, or, others take it but stay on high alert. Our suspiciousness in a windfall is just too big. Too good to be true? Chase Credit Journey seems all nice and dandy, but are the credit scores it provides accurate? Can you rely on it as you do on your car speedometer? To get an answer to that, I’ll start by saying that the scoring model Chase Credit Journey uses to produce your score is Vantage 3.0. There are two well-known scoring models used; Fico and Vantage. Scoring models are companies that take your credit information; think personal info, accounts, credit history, balances, payments, etc., and they use it to calculate and create your credit score. Fico and Vantage are similar scoring models, yet not the same. The information they use to calculate your credit score differs. Of the two, Fico is used way more and gained way more popularity amongst lenders. When you apply for a card or loan, most of the time, the lender will be using your Fico score to check you out before making an approval decision. As a matter of fact, Fico reports that 90% of top lenders use them over Vantage. The fact that Chase Credit Journey uses your Vantage score, lessens the accuracy of the credit score you get there. It is somewhat true, but it is not the credit score that’ll get used to approve or decline you for new credit lines, mortgages, or loans. However, everything besides for your actual score; your credit history, account details, derogatories, etc, is true, because it originates from Experian. The credit bureaus; Experian, Transunion, and Equifax, are the ones that collect credit information from every consumer and hand it over to the scoring models. Chase Credit Journey gets the credit scores from Vantage, but the actual information on your credit report they get directly from Experian. Experian is trusted since it’s one of the credit bureaus, so we can safely know that the credit report displayed on your Chase Credit Journey portal is all accurate. Why are my credit scores different on different websites? Subscribe for more great credit content. Watch Now Chase Credit Journey recently transitioned from using Transunion as the credit bureau and is now using Experian. For most users, this already changed. If you use Chase Credit Journey and notice they’re still basing it on Transunion for your stuff, it should be updating properly soon. Because our credit reports and scores are so crucial to our financial part of our lives, just like coffee is, we need to have it as up-to-date as possible! Your credit report will update in real-time, meaning if you apply for a credit card, a hard inquiry shows up on your report. But you will only see these updates reflect on Chase Credit Journey once every 7 days. You got that, on a weekly basis. Hmm, is that often enough…? Good question. As a credit monitoring tool, it’s good. It’s free, it gives you access to your credit report, and gives you an about-credit score. It offers some great, and fun features such as the score simulator, credit resources, recommendations, and alerts. So on that front, it is recommended. But, there is some bad to it. Ok, it’s not bad, but has some disadvantages. For one, we mentioned the credit score is inaccurate, being produced by Vantage. And second, the features are good but not all are oiled well; The simulator can often freeze or decide not to calculate a predicted score or throw back a random score, and card recommendations will only propose Chase credit cards. In addition, Chase Credit Journey is based on only 1 out of the 3 credit bureaus. That gets you some place, but since each credit bureau reports a bit more or a bit less than its partner, you’re not getting The Full picture from one credit bureau. Also, Chase Credit Journey updates once a week. We’ve got other credit monitoring services that update daily! You can literally clock in every morning with those. So why go for the weekly?? However, if those disadvantages don’t stand in your way, go for it! After all, the good of it is still really good. If not all is hunky-dory back with Chase Credit Journey, are there any other, free, credit monitoring options out there for someone who’d like another option? There sure are other free options, let’s check it out. Credit KarmaWith over 60 million users, Credit Karma is for sure the “Kleenex tissues” when it comes to viewing and monitoring your credit report for free. They also provide you with great personal tips and tools for how you can improve your credit. Pros
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Wallet HubWallet Hub is the only free credit report website that provides updates on your credit report every single day. They will also give you personal tips and tools on how to improve your credit score. Pros
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Freecreditscore.comFreecreditscore.com is part of the Experian Company and you can view your Experian credit report and FICO credit score for free. Pros
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Nerd WalletNerd wallet is a very nice and updated website that has very good and advanced tools that will help you improve your credit score. Pros
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Credit SesameCredit Sesame is the only free credit monitoring that also offers a free insurance plan which they claim will refund you up to $100,000 if you’re a victim of identity theft.
Does Chase credit journey impact score?Checking your credit score on Credit Journey does not lower your credit score. We access your credit information using a soft inquiry, also known as a soft credit check, which does not impact your score.
Does checking your credit score on Chase make it go down?Does a credit check lower your score? Checking your credit score on your own, which is a soft credit check or inquiry, doesn't hurt your credit score. But when a creditor or lender runs a credit check, that's often a hard credit check, which could affect your credit score.
Is Chase credit journey accurate credit score?Chase Credit Journey gets the credit scores from Vantage, but the actual information on your credit report they get directly from Experian. Experian is trusted since it's one of the credit bureaus, so we can safely know that the credit report displayed on your Chase Credit Journey portal is all accurate.
Does opening a Chase checking account affect credit score?Your bank account information doesn't show up on your credit report, nor does it impact your credit score. Yet lenders use information about your checking, savings and assets to determine whether you have the capacity to take on more debt.
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