As of today, Barclaycard has partnered with FICO to offer it’s card-members the Transunion FICO (Not FAKO!) score absolutely free.This means that card-members will have access to the same information and score that the banks and credit cards issuers have. Card-members can now access their Transunion FICO scores right from their Barclaycard online profile.

In addition to generating your score, Barclaycard’s site also provides the top two factors currently affecting your score and a chart showing historical changes (available after three months of history, showing up to 12 months of data). You can also opt to get an email alert anytime your score changes.

While many companies claim to offer “free” credit scores, most are not “real” ones (aka FAKO scores) or require a fee for ongoing access, so this free FICO score is a a pretty nice added perk.

Select Barclaycards such as the Barclaycard Arrival (One of the best cash-back credit cards out there, Read more here) the Barclaycard Ring, and the USAirways Mastercard are now giving the FREE credit score.

There are 3 credit bureaus, Experian, Equifax and Transunion. There is therefore 3 individual credit scores – one for each bureau.

The most widely used credit score company is FICO. FICO is a company that simply aggregates credit data from the bureaus and generates a unique score for every bureau based on your credit info at that particular bureau. They then sell that information to companies and banks. It produces a number based on your perceived credit worthiness on a scale of 300-850, with roughly 700 being the average. Per the FICO website, the five main factors of your credit score are: 35% payment history, 30% amounts owed, 15% length of credit history, 10% new credit and 10% types of credit.

Generally a score above 700 is considered good. Once you are above 720, it generally doesn’t matter whether you have a 760 or 850 score. Perfect credit will make you feel good, but realistically doesn’t really make much more of a difference than say people who have very good credit. In fact, many people can still get in on credit cards with mid to high 600′s – it just depends on your income and history with the lender.

No Barcalycard? You can get your real Transunion score directly from Transuinion with a free trial. You can cancel online hassle free. What’s recommended is to get your credit report and credit score, print or save to PDF, and then cancel immediately afterward on the same day so that you won’t forget later.

You can also get your real Equifax FICO score at MyFico. You can call 1.888.577.5978 to cancel, you are able to do it online as well, though it’s not cancelled automatically as the Transunion is. The trick is to get your credit score and/or credit report, and then cancel immediately afterward on the same day so that you won’t forget later. Hours (PDT) M-F 6am-6pm, Sat 7am-4pm, Sun Closed.