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Your credit report is very important if you use credit card sign-up bonuses to pad your loyalty point balances. When I started, I checked my credit report for discrepancies. I made sure that every account was mine and that no incorrect information might keep me from getting another credit card.

On the message boards where I learned how to monitor my credit, I would read about people who froze their credit. While part of this was to prevent fraud, it was also a way to keep banks from knowing how many credit cards you’d recently applied for. If you knew a bank checked Experian and you had several cards on that bureau, locking that account and having the bank check your empty TransUnion report could allow you to get an additional card.

While some of that gamesmanship still exists, banks and credit reporting companies have become more efficient and new accounts and inquiries show up in near real-time on all of the reports.

That leaves preventing fraud as the main reason to freeze your credit report.

I probably wouldn’t be considering that, if it wasn’t for the confluence of two events.

Reports of Fraudulent Applications From Other Bloggers

Ben from One Mile At A Time reported that there have been two incidents of credit applications being opened that might have targeted him. The applications caused him to lock his credit as a preventative step, even if the events were false alarms.

Our blog isn’t as popular as OMAAT and we haven’t experienced the level of trolling that he has over the years. But it’s always been in the back of my mind to keep an eye on our reservations and accounts just in case someone has any ideas. We’ve gotten enough negative comments over the years to make me think it could eventually happen.

This Email From American Express

If I wasn’t already on high alert, this email from AMEX put me over the edge.

What would you think if you received this email?

If you’re me, it means that I just applied for a new Hilton Honors AMEX co-brand card. However, I didn’t apply for a new Hilton AMEX card. I went to my AMEX accounts to make sure there were no new cards on my account. I also checked my Hilton Honors account and no mention of a credit card there either.

Things got confusing as I read more of the email. That’s where Hilton reminded me that because of my AMEX Platinum Card, I’m eligible for Hilton Honors Gold status. 

What makes this even stranger is that I already applied for Hilton Gold with my AMEX Platinum Card in April of this year.

What Should I Do?

First of all, I’m going to keep an eye on my AMEX accounts and the mail to make sure I don’t get a new co-brand Hilton card that I never applied for.

In addition, should I freeze our credit reports? It’s not a difficult thing to do and we only apply for a few credit cards every year. This small action would prevent me from being worried about something like this down the road.

OTOH, if someone went out of their way to apply for a Hilton card in my name as a goof, I’d sort of feel like I’d arrived at a level of travel blogger status I hadn’t thought we’d achieved. 🙂

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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary

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