<prompt> Human: Hello all, Is there a way for me to make a hard pull on my card without hurting my credit score? I need to pay off tuition, and thats accumulated to 4k. Id like to pay it off at once since I have a card that has a cap much more than that amount, but Ive read that doing a hard pull can really hurt my credit. So lets say my limit is 5k, would it be possible for me to pay the card 4k now, and have a total of 9k, THEN pay off my tuition without hurting my credit? Id personally want to avoid paying it off over time, so thats out of the question. Thanks!  <response>: Can I try rephrasing the question so I make sure what you are asking.You owe 4K in tuition. You have a current credit limit on your card of 5K To keep your utilization rate down you want to pay 4K on your card now so you have a positive balance of 4K. Then when you pay your tuition it will not raise your utilization and thereby hurt your credit score.How did I do. Assuming I am correct I would say the following.IF you are worried about your utilization you can avoid this without prepaying. You can run the 4k on your card, assuming you do not do it just prior too your statement cut-off, and pay it off before your statement is generated. Then your new statement balance will not reflect that 4k charge.If you do not need your credit for the month or two following this transaction do not worry about it. Utilization does not have a memory so when you pay it the following month and that data is sent to bureaus it will go back down.The term hard pull is referring to when they pull a copy of your credit report to grant you credit. In case you were referring to that in this post; If you are trying to ask them to increase your credit limit to 9K to avoid hurting your utilization rate I would recommend going with one of my earlier recommendations. Unless your income or credit score has increased significantly since that credit limit was granted it may be difficult to get them to almost double your credit limit. 