Free Credit Report with Rejection

[Anonymous]

I remember back in March I got rejected for a Blue for Students card. Because of whatever law it is, I got access to my credit report for 60 days. I thought that it was just the same report that I was checking over and over up until my date of last payment information updated on my TU report.

My question is... was this supposed to be happening and are there any downers to it? The way I see it, it was 60 days of checking my credit report for free whenever I wanted to, so I was checking every day for two-three weeks to see if there was new info being added. In that case, wouldn't it be worth the hard pull? And if it's not worth it, how many hard pulls are too many? I was reading in another thread that someone had 11 and that was considered too many, but I'm reading other posts with people posting 2x to 3x that amount of inquiries.

And to ask a bit of an unrelated question, if I can't pay off a credit balance in full in time for my due date, does making a partial payment now and paying off the rest of the card before my next closing date have any perks to just paying part now and paying the rest after my next closing date? I'm trying to apply for credit very soon, so the quicker it's reported I have $0 in balances on my cards the better, but if the two scenarios I just presented don't really differentiate, then I won't bother.

[mdstar1]

1) You aren't dinged for checking your own credit.

2) Paying the rest of the balance off before the next reporting date and bill would be better.  A lower utilization would be posted.  Lowering this number is always recommended before applying for new credit.  If you aren't going to apply until you have a $0 balance, then I guess it doesn't matter.  Except that you'll be paying interest on the carried balance.

[thrasher865]

He's referring to the inquiry to get rejected for a credit card and get access to his credit reports.  Not an inquiry for checking the reports.

Yes 11 inquiries is too much in the past six months to get approved for much of anything.  A lot of people get rejected for just 3 or 4 inquiries, though I'm sure other areas of your credit report/score have a lot to do with approvals and the lenders just cite the inquiries as the primary reason.