Today i'm going to talk about experian boost because it's a very easy way that you can increase your credit score instantly and it's free.
So for most of us out there, it's at least worth looking into now. It has been out for over a year.
So it's not like it's something new to everyone but they did offer a new feature that i've been noticing in some of their recent advertisements. that's the main reason that i wanted to create this article today so that we're up to date on everything experian boost.
WHAT IS EXPERIAN BOOST?
So one of the first questions you're probably asking is what is Experian boost.
Now the easiest way that i can describe this is that
Experian is one of the three major credit bureaus out there and they determine pretty much what your credit score is. experian developed a new way of finding more data for you and they call it experian boost.
Normally we have a lot of monthly bills that come out but a lot of those monthly bills that are recurring aren't actually reported to the credit bureaus.
So what experian boost is able to do is able to go into your utilities your cable your internet.
a bunch of different things that you pay every single month and they're able to actually put those inside of your credit report and make it even better for you.
And so that is what experian boost is. something else that i've personally noticed from all the advertisements that i've seen recently is that they now include streaming services particularly Netflix, Hulu Disney plus and HBO.
So if you actually have any of those running every single month, then those can actually help your credit score just by using the experian boost.
So basically if you've got different utility bills and telecom bills that are in your name that you have to pay for every single month.
Then those can actually help boost your score each and every one of them.
So for instance water gas electric phone internet cable, all those types of things can help boost your score. it's not guaranteed that the xperia boost will find and count every single one of those but they might.
now because they've introduced netflix hulu hbo and disney plus you can also get credit for actually having those streaming services that you would have paid for regardless.
honestly, if you don't have netflix or something like that i wouldn't go out of my way just to sign up in hopes that you're going to boost your credit score because what experience says is that on average you're going to boost your score by 13 points.
So nothing's really guaranteed here.
You could go up one point you could go up to as high as i've seen as 44 points.
So just keep that in mind the boost isn't going to be that high and generally speaking.
It's made for people with a thin credit score meaning they don't have a lot of credit history or credit.
So in those cases, if you're newer to the credit world the boost can definitely help you.
but if you're extremely established and you have like an 800 credit score, it's probably not going to do much for you.
HOW DOES EXPERIAN BOOST WORK?
So the next question i want to answer is how does experian boost work?
And this is also very simple because you don't have to go through a third party to activate it or anything like that.
You just have to go to experian's main website which is experian.com and then find their boost feature.
And once you find that you just sign up for it, it's free put in your credentials and then you also have to add your bank account that is associated with those monthly payments.
So as long as those monthly payments are coming out of a certain checking account or multiple checking accounts, you'll need to add those and then you're going to have them run their boost.
So they're not reading your bank account information.
They're just reading the information that they need to see. as soon as they do that you can instantly increase your credit score by adding the boost.
Now keep in mind that experian boost is only looking for positive payment history and i don't know how long they're looking for but it's probably between about three and six months.
So if you've had a Netflix bill for five months in a row, then it'll probably count as a positive towards your credit boost.
Now if you have anything negative on there, like for instance if you missed or had a late payment on your utilities that is not going to be affected because of the experian boost.
so don't worry about that. The experian boost is only going to help you, It's not going to hurt you.
if you really are concerned you can actually turn on and off the different types of bills that they find.
so for instance, if you don't want netflix for some reason on your experian boost, then you can actually turn that off.
you'll always have access to be able to turn them on and off depending on what you want to do.
So when it comes to a negative impact on your credit score, you don't need to worry about experian boost doing that.
once again, they're only looking for positive payment history so they can at least try to get your credit score a little bit higher.
i do want to make a note here that if you happen to make a lot of those specific payments on your credit card, then those are not going to help towards the boost. because the boost is only attributed to the checking account that's linked.
And so if that bill isn't inside the checking account, then they're never going to see it and you're never going to get credit.
So if you really want to get credit and you're paying netflix on your credit card, then switch that over to your checking account and basically within three to six months. it will add on to the experian boost and hopefully boost your score.
I also want to mention that the experian boost is only added to the fico 8 credit score model.
So what this basically means is that when you go out and you get a loan 90 of the lenders out there do use the fico 8 model. so that's a good thing but there are lenders that don't use that information.
So just keep in mind that just because you have a higher credit score from your boost doesn't mean that the lender is even going to read or care about any of that information.
then just remember that the boost is only coming from experience.
So if you were looking for a mortgage and the lender wanted to look at your credit score from all three different credit bureaus.
then obviously the other two bureaus wouldn't have the boost information because that's only coming from experian specifically.
Wrapping Up!
So overall if you want to increase your credit score and you do have those certain types of monthly bills that are coming out every month, then definitely try experian boost because like i said their program is free for the boost.
it also includes quite a few other features that can help you with your credit monitoring, and those are also free as well. they do have a paid program.
That's 25 bucks a month that offers quite a few other features you can sign up for that if you want to but as for the boost that we've been talking about that is for sure free.
Now we think you better understand what is Experian Boost? and How does Experian Boost works?