Is the pain of thawing a credit freeze just the fact that you have to do it for each of the three bureaus or is there more? It seems like other than that, as long as you have a 1 hour notice you should be fine.
It's not that bad. As long as you have the links bookmarked and have your PIN saved, it's a 5 minute process. And you can even make it temporary, so if you are looking at getting qualified for a loan you could give yourself just enough time to get that accomplished.
Also, only kinda related but this is extremely useful too, it prevents you from getting junk credit card offers in the mail, that others could potentially do in your name:
It's not any more than that minor inconvenience. Also, you only need to thaw the account with the credit bureau your lender (or whomever) uses, so you just need to ask if they use Experian, TU, or Equifax.
It is generally free now and I can unlock all my freezes quickly and it instantly takes effect. I did it on the phone with a lender once. They didn’t believe it!
https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html
https://www.equifax.com/personal/credit-report-services/cred...
https://www.transunion.com/credit-freeze
Also, only kinda related but this is extremely useful too, it prevents you from getting junk credit card offers in the mail, that others could potentially do in your name:
https://www.optoutprescreen.com/
And if you want to make identity theft even harder for someone, using a service like this to make your info less searchable is also great:
https://joindeleteme.com/