9Benua

You can laminate & hang your pristine 800+ credit score on the wall, I prefer to have my 700+ credit score & having my vacation paid by chase, citi, amex, etc LOL

iliopsoas

Yes, that's bad.

Some of the factors affecting your score, as previously mentioned:
Overall utilization
Utilization on a single or several card(s)
# of cards reporting a balance

In my experience, it's optimal to let only 1 card report a balance of 1-2%. I pay the remaining cards in full before reporting date so that the credit bureau sees zero balances on those cards.

mnscout

No, but if I did that to myself, I would be seriously stretching the limits of my sanity. This is simply too much work and it's completely unnecessary.

sharka

Completely agree as I had stated that it will only mess up in the end as you WILL miss a payment somewhere and that will add a late payment to your report and that is one of the BIGGEST FACTOR with the score.

Tavinder Hare

One thing to consider is your credit score strategy. First, make sure you have some business cards in each app-o-rama since it won't drop your average age, and second, throw in the AMEX Cards if you have a long history with them to raise your term.

It's easy to start your app-o-ramas by hitting the personal cards only, and going straight for the chase and citi cards first since they have the most/best cards (especially since the blogs all advertise them as well).


Doesn't everyone set up autopay just to make sure you don't accidentally miss a payment? The last thing you want is an erroneous charge or something to ruin your credit. Our process when we sign up for any new card is to basically set up the new card to e-mail statements, set up the alerts, sign up for auto-pay, and track it on quicken. Obviously I have Ye Ole Spreadsheet that tracks open/close/approval/points posting and such as well.

StartinSanDiego

Yup, I set up autopay before the first statement hits. Then it's smooth sailing from there... no chance of a missed payment or confusion as to whether or not a card was used.

KennyBSAT

^^^^ Having a perfect credit score you never use is like keeping your savings under the mattress. Sure, it's there, but it's not doing you any good.

compddd

I check all 5 bank websites that I have cards with daily because I'm anal, but I will change my strategy to one card reporting 1-2 % balance.

mnscout

^

SquarePeg

Great info here. After reading this thread I have a feeling my score may be taking a dive this month. I never pay before statement date and had a perfect storm I think. Meeting spend on 3 cards right now so 3 balances there. Used 2 of my sock drawer cards because it had been almost 6 mos since last use (that makes 5 balanceso). Had very small charges at Kohls and Target (have to use their charge to get the discount). That makes 7. Also, I an AU on a card of my mom's and see it on CK that it has a balance (Sears no interest on a new fridge). That's 8. Only the first 3 are significant amounts but the cards have high CLs. Based on thus thread, I'll have to change my methods going forward. Does AU balance count against you?

sharka

Since the AU is linked to your card and you are the primary holder on the acct then the answer is yes.

SquarePeg

In this case, I am the AU. I know my question was worded poorly. I was surprised to see her Sears account showing up on my C R. I've been on there as AU for about 20 years and have never noticed it on my report before. Of course she rarely uses it...

compddd

Could I put $50 on only one card and let the statement cut and be good? Or do you get rounded down to 0% overall utilization if you don't have enough on your card relative to your total credit lines?

MDtR-Chicago

AU accounts are believed to count the same as regular tradelines toward FICO. See this Q&A thread: http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Unde...g/td-p/1167913

One major difference: For most banks, when you revoke the AU, it disappears from the credit report. This can be good or bad, depending if you wanted it to stay there for account aging. Another thing to consider: Amex usually does not let authorized users inherit account opening date anymore; the history of the account will show up on the AU's report but the opening date will be whenever the AU card itself was opened.

Also, possibly relevant to the Sears issue, there are some banks that are not consistent about reporting $0 balance accounts. For example, I've heard that sometimes CapitalOne accounts will simply disappear for a while and then reappear later. It's entirely up to the bank if they want to report or not, and when, really. The only requirement is that what they choose to report is accurate.

MDtR-Chicago

Great question. I don't know of anyone who has ever experimented. If you decide to try, let us know. (I suspect it just needs to show ANY balance, as long as that balance is <10%.)