I basically agree with this strategy -- paying off, or paying way down, your card the day before your statement will help by reducing your "utilization ratio", in most cases.
The scores come from credit bureaus -- credit unions are savings institutions with "members" instead of customers.
However, bear in mind that your credit score is not the only determining factor about whether you'll get approved -- inquiries themselves are also considered directly.
Originally Posted by
o2bnzhongguo
I just started a new strategy to attempt to get above 800. I do assume that you are paying off your balances every month and that you are charging a decent amount to the cards each month, but nothing else is required.
It's easy: figure out when the lender reports balances to the credit unions (usually the day your monthly statement is generated) and pay the balance in full the day before that. As a result, the credit unions always see $0 balance as opposed to whatever you charged during the month (which for me is usually $3k-5k). The balance-to-credit limit calculation is about 15% of your score if I remember correctly.
I haven't been at this long enough to be able to say what the improvement is, but it should definitely help some.