Did you know that some credit cards will tell you what your credit score is for free? Knowing your credit score is one of the most important things when you’re working on Credit Repair or about to apply for a new credit card such as the Chase Sapphire Preferred with its 40,000 point sign on bonus. Your credit score is computed by scoring different things in your credit file to come up with an objective number to help creditors quickly make credit decisions. 
While the above graph tells you what is important, it doesn’t tell you exactly what your score will be which is why it is great to be able to see your score regularly. Here are some of the cards we recommend that allow you free access to your credit score:
This card is great because it not only gives you your FICO score but also has no annual fee (all of the rest below have annual fees). This is one of the reasons that I still have this card even after getting it over 20 years ago. Discover makes it really convenient by giving you credit score each month right on your monthly statement. This makes it easy to keep an eye on that all important credit score. Add this to the fact that Discover has a great cashback program with quarterly bonuses, great promotional 0% interest balance transfer offers (such as the 18 month interest free offer they currently have for new signups), no foreign transaction fees and is the only cars that you can use reliably in China, I really think that this card should be in everyone’s wallet.
2. US Airways® Premier World MasterCard®
This card is one that we recommend over and over because of its generous 40,000 mile bonus with just $1 in spending! In fact, I used part of this bonus recently to go to Austria, Germany and China in business class for just $184! It also gives you a free FICO score via their website when you log into your account dashboard. Their standard benefits of a free checked bag and a 5,000 mile discount on US Airways awards definitely are useful to have. To add a cherry on top, they have a 15 month 0% interest offer for balance transfers made in the first 45 days after your account opening. Since US Airways has merged with American, these miles will eventually become American miles in 2015 and this card will disappear as we discussed in this article.
3. US Bank FlexPerks® Travel Rewards Visa Signature® Card
This card is one we haven’t covered in a full article yet but we wanted to include it because it gives you a free Experian Credit Score monthly. The 20,000 Flexpoint signup bonus can be redeemed for an airline ticket that costs up to $400 which can be a good value if you are trying to earn status with an airline while you redeem the bonus. If you redeem your points wisely, you can end up with 2% back on normal expenses, 4% on airline purchases and cell phone bills, gas or groceries. Look for a full article digging into this card soon, but for now check out the application page for details.
4. Barclaycard Arrival Plus™ World Elite MasterCard®
This card offers not only a free monthly FICO score, but also a 40,000 Arrival Mile sign up bonus that can be redeemed as a statement credit for up to $400 in travel related expenses. We previously wrote about the 7 best ways to use the Arrival Card bonus, another article about the benefits in detail, and another article as a general overview.
5. Capital One Venture Rewards Card
Capital One Venture Rewards gives you a monthly non-FICO Transunion Educational Score each month via their online dashboard. We got this card when they were offering a great100K bonus, but the 40K bonus they currently offer is still good for $400 in travel expenses. This card offers 2X miles for every purchase which means it is worth 2% as a credit for travel related expenses.
Conclusion
By getting a credit card that gives you a free credit score each month it allows you to keep an eye on your score without paying for it. This way if you notice a score drop due to mistakes on your credit report or fraud, you can quickly notice and take action. Having quick access to your credit score also helps if you are doing our Credit Repair 101 Section and want to see how the changes are effecting your credit. Finally, it allows you to know when the best time to apply for that new card such as the Chase Sapphire Preferred is and its 40,000 point sign on bonus!
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