Don't have a whole lot of time to bring up your score?

Here are some quick ways (in less than 30 days!):

1. Pay down your credit cards. Paying off your installment loans (personal loans, car loans, etc with set monthly installments) may  help your score, but not as dramatically as paying down -- or paying off -- revolving accounts like credit cards. Each individual credit card should hold a balance of 25% or below of your maximum credit allowance.
2. Don't use your whole credit line every month, even if you pay your balance in full. Your available credit is averaged over your billing cycle, which is sometimes less than 30 days. If your limit is say, $5000 and you charge $5000, even if you pay it off each month, your credit balance is still going to show $2500 (a 50% usage limit), which is going to make your score plunge.
3. Is your credit report correctly reporting your credit limits for your cards? If not, you can call your credit card issuer and ask them to update the list (only if they are reporting the limit lower than your actual limit set by the creditor).
4. Don't use credit card issuers who don't report your credit limit. Usually this is a problem you only run into with secured credit cards, but were you aware that American Express cards and Capital One do not report credit limits? In this case the bureaus typically use your highest balance as a proxy for your credit limit, which is going to make you look like you are maxed out.
5. Ask a trusted friend or family member to add you to

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