There are plenty of “FAKE-O” credit scores out there, but the only place to get your real FICO score is myFICO.com. Problem is, usually these cost money and even if they are free due to some promotion, it’s during some random time of the year. If you want a free FICO Score on demand, you’ll have to agree to a free 10-day trial at MyFICO.com:

IMPORTANT INFORMATION: When you order your free FICO Score here, you will begin your 10-day trial membership in Score Watch®. If you don’t cancel your membership within the 10-day trial period, you will be billed $12.95 for each month that you continue your membership. You may cancel your trial membership anytime within the trial period without charge.

Pain in the rear, right? Well, not really. Two things make this a 5-minute operation:

1. If you do not want the monitoring that ScoreWatch provides, then you can cancel immediately after you get your free credit score. Don’t wait a day. Don’t even wait an hour. This way you won’t give yourself a chance to forget.
2. You can cancel with just a few clicks. 100% online, no phone calls, with no hassle. You don’t have be subject to a hard sell or argue with anyone.

Here’s how I did last week. First, when you go through the process to buy your free score with trial, you will have to provide your credit card information but nothing should be charged.

After that, you should receive your credit score and the related Equifax credit report. Print it out. You’re going to cancel right afterward so you won’t have access to the information anymore. Print – or at least print/save to PDF – anything you want to keep. This was the first time I’ve ever seen a score above 800!

Now, don’t go anywhere. To cancel, click on Support on the top right of the page, then Contact Us by email. Choose “I would like to cancel my product subscription” and for the product mark “Score Watch® – Free Trial”. Here is a screenshot of what it should look like. Finally, type in your personal information and submit. There is a blank for the order number, but it is not required. I didn’t bother to fill in anything optional, and my cancellation still worked fine.

myFICO should e-mail you back in about 24 hours. It took 25 hours for me. Here is the response you should get. The title of the e-mail was “Score Watch(R) Cancellation”:

Your order for Score Watch® (monthly payment option) has been cancelled. You will not be charged in the future for this product.

If you have any questions, please call myFICO Customer Support at 1-800-319-4433, Monday – Friday 6:00 AM – 6:00PM (Pacific Time) or Saturday 7:00AM – 4:00PM (Pacific Time).

Thank you,

myFICO Customer Support

That’s it, a free credit report and score with minimal hassle direct from MyFICO.com. Remember, when you request your own report, it doesn’t affect your credit score at all.

Citi and American Airlines is offering 75,000 AAdvantage miles if you apply for a new Visa or American Express card (and have never had any Citi/AA co-branded card before) and make $4,000 in purchases within 6 months of becoming a cardmember. The annual fee for the consumer cards is $85 but is waived for the first year. Offer expires 2/28/2011. A nice deal if you like to travel and are serviced by American.

This Citi® / AAdvantage® card offer is valid only for first-time Citi® / AAdvantage® cardmembers who apply pursuant to this offer for an account by February 28, 2011. The American Airlines AAdvantage® miles will appear as a bonus in your AAdvantage® account 8-10 weeks after you have met the purchase requirements.

Discover is running a 2010 holiday promotion where you can get double CashBack on online purchases from November 15th to December 31st. Applies to up to $1,000 in purchases on the Discover More, Open Road, and Motiva cards. You must sign-up online.

Discover cashback rebates are usually tiered, but from the fine print it looks like a straight-up 2% cashback or 2 miles per dollars spent, depending on your card. The purchases earning 2% back don’t even count towards your tier level.

* Sign up to earn 2% Cashback Bonus on Internet purchases from 11/15/10 (or the date on which you sign up, whichever is later) through 12/31/10, subject to a cap of $1,000 in purchases. These purchases must post to your account by 12/31/10. If a purchase is not classified as an Internet purchase, it will not qualify. Purchases earning 2% Cashback Bonus will not count toward your total annual purchases to determine your tier level. Allow up to 5 weeks for this reward to be added to your Cashback Bonus account. Only Discover More, Open Road and Motiva Cardmembers are eligible to participate in this program. See Cashback Bonus Program Terms and Conditions for further details.

The Discover® More® Card also has their quarterly promotion of 5% cash back from now until March 31st on:

* Gas
* Entertainment

When you charge something on your credit card, the merchant usually pays about 2-3% in transaction fees for the convenience and benefit of accepting these cards. To get your business, issuers often rebate part of these fees in the form of % cashback rewards or frequent flier miles. Since credit cards offer handy conveniences like easily tracking spending, fraud charge back protection, and extended warranties, I figure you might as well earn some of this back as well. I previously wrote about the new trend of rotating rewards categories as a carrot. (Stop reading now if you carry a balance and are paying double-digit interest every month.)

Here’s an update for the offers during Q1 2012. It seems like they are getting ready for holiday shopping. Too bad my goal is to not set foot in a department store this year!

Chase Freedom Visa – $100 Bonus Cash Back
Reward categories change quarterly. From January 1 to March 31, you can earn 5% cash back on up to $1,500 spent in the following categories:

• Gas Stations
• Amazon.com

You must enroll at ChaseBonus.com. All other purchases do earn a standard 1%, with no tiers or expiration of rewards. Currently, the Chase Freedom Visa card has a promotion offering a $100 check if you sign up and make $500 in purchases in your first three months.

Citi® Dividend Platinum Select® Visa® Card
Reward categories change quarterly. From October 1st to December 31st, you can earn 5% cash back from Citi on:

• Department Stores
• Clothing Stores
• Electronics Stores
• Toy Stores

After you get your card, you must enroll by logging into your account or calling 1-800-231-0891. There is no cap on the 5% back, except for the $300 overall cap on all dividend rewards annually. All other purchases do earn a standard 1% with no tiers, and rewards do not expire as long as you have activity once every 12 months. Also, 0% APR on balance transfers for 12 months with 3% fee and on purchases for 12 months.

Discover More Card
Reward categories change quarterly. From October 1 to December 31, you can earn 5% cash back on up to $300 spent in the following categories:

• Restaurants
• Department Stores
• Clothing Stores

You must enroll online to activate the rewards each quarter. Discover card has a tiered cashback rate (1% unlimited Cashback Bonus on purchases after your total annual purchases exceed $3000; purchases that are part of your first $3000 earn .25%.).

PenFed Platinum Cashback Rewards Card
Bonus categories appear and change regularly for this card, but not on a set schedule. Currently through December 31st, cardholders can earn 3% cashback in the following categories:

• Electronics
• Sporting Goods

You can view all the eligible merchants here. You don’t need to enroll. This is in addition to the year-round rewards structure of 5% cash back on gas purchases (must pay at pump), 2% cash back on supermarket purchases, and 1% cash back on everything else. Rewards are credited monthly on your next statement.

Note: To get this card, you must also have membership to the Pentagon Federal Credit Union (you can apply for both at the same time). In general, membership is open to the military, US government employees, or the family or household of existing members. However, anyone can become eligible by joining the National Military Family Association (NMFA) for a $20 one-time fee. PenFed also offers other competitive financial products, including low-rate mortgages and long-term CD rates.

American Express has temporarily brought back their 25,000 Membership Rewards point offer for their Premier Rewards Gold Card from American Express®, which is one of their upscale-oriented charge cards where you must pay off the balance each month. Offer expires October 12th.

• Earn More: earn 25K Membership Rewards points after you spend $2K during your first three months of Card membership. MR points are very versatile, and can be converted to 25,000 frequent flier miles in a number of programs in various increments, or you can simply get $250 in gift cards at several stores like Home Depot, Crate & Barrel, or Macy’s. (The usual offers are for 10,000 or 15,000 bonus points.)
• No annual fee for your first year. Another important feature, you can get the sign-up bonus and also try out this card for free for a year. If you keep the card after that, there is a $195 annual fee.
• Offers 3X points on airfare, 2X points on gasoline at U.S. stand-alone gas stations and at U.S. stand-alone supermarkets, and 1X points on other purchases. The traditional versions only offer 1 point per $ spent, so these are an extra perk for those that spend a lot on airfare.
• Earn an additional 15,000 Membership Rewards bonus points when you spend $30,000 within one calendar year. This means that if you spend $30,000 in a year ($2,500 per month) that you’ll get at least 25,000 for sign-up + 30,000 on spending + 15,000 bonus = 70,000 points total, plus any extra for gas/groceries/airfare.

For those that charge a lot, especially with reimbursed airfare, that’s enough for 70,000 frequent flier miles (possibly two flights to Hawaii) or $700 in gift cards. If you don’t, there’s still that $250 upfront bonus with only $1,000 minimum spending. Terms and Restrictions Apply.

Now that I’m flying a lot more again, I’m back in the hunt for some frequent flier perks. I just came across the new Continental Airlines OnePass Plus Card from Chase, which has a pretty nice mix of perks for travelers.

Sign-Up Bonus: Free Flight

• 25,000 Bonus Miles after first purchase (no minimum amount) for first-time Continental Airlines personal Cardmembers. That’s enough already for one free round-trip airfare within the continental US.
• No annual fee the first year. The regular annual fee is $85, but is waived the first year.
• 5,000 Bonus Miles for adding an authorized user to your account. This is another easy one to get. Remember, just because you add someone doesn’t mean you have to give them the card. 😉
• If you spend $25,000 on the card annually, you’ll get another 10,000 bonus miles. Since you earn 1 miles per $1 spent as well, this works out to 1.4 miles/dollar when you reach that mark.

Travel Perks

• Free checked bag. If you fly on Continental, you and up to 9 travel companions will all each get your first checked bag for free. That’s a savings of $50 round-trip, per person.
• Primary rental car insurance. Almost all personal credit cards only offer secondary rental car insurance, which means you have to file a claim with your own auto insurance first, which means you have to pay the deductible and possibly face higher future premiums. With primary collision damage waiver (CDW) even for personal use, you get coverage for damage or theft without having to make a claim.
• More travel insurance that isn’t on all cards, like trip cancellation insurance up to $1500 for a illness with doctor’s note , delayed baggage coverage up to $300 if you have baggage delayed more than 18 hours and need to buy items to get by.
• If you decide to keep this card past the first year, you’ll get two free passes to their First-Class airport lounge.

As you may have heard, Continental and United are merging, and the resulting airline is supposed to have the name United. Here’s a chance to rack up some miles that will eventually merge together – this card and bonus may not be available in the future. Until when they actually do merge, I should also note that Continental’s OnePass is known as one of the better programs when it comes to redeeming miles for trips.

Besides the Continental Airlines OnePass Plus Card, you can get a more flexible $625 travel bonus from the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, as well as other cards worth $500 in airfare.

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Visit the 3-in-1 Credit Report with Score page at Equifax and click on “Buy Now”. You’ll have to register on the website or log in with a previously created account. There is no need to enter credit card information. When you are able to, enter the promotion code NOC431 and the price will show as $0.00. Via littlepenguin of SD. Users have reported mixed success with many people getting some sort of error, but it worked fine for me:

You will end up with your credit reports from all three credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion) as well as your official FICO score based on your Experian credit report. (You know you have 3 different FICO scores – one from each bureau – right?) A pretty good deal, although I wouldn’t say it’s worth the $39.95 retail price. I wouldn’t wait too long on this, the code could expire at any time. (Update: Appears to be expired, some people are calling in manually and applying the code with success.)

Going back to school? Citibank has some good card options for college students:

• Citi mtvU Platinum Select Visa Card
• Citi Forward Card for College Students – $75 Statement Credit

Both the mtvU and Forward cards offer 5x rewards on bookstores, movies, music, and restaurants – boy do they know students. 5x ThankYou points amounts to 3.45% cash back or 5% back in the form of gift cards from certain retailers. Great deal if you can handle credit responsibly. I’m pretty sure I applied for my first credit card in college in exchange for a cheap t-shirt with a Cal logo on it and no rewards whatsoever. Good thing I’ve always hated owing other people money…

As noted previously, 5x points on bookstores also includes anything bought at Amazon.com (a bookstore!). Would go perfectly with your free year of Amazon Prime.