Originally Posted by
jan_believes
Is it true that when you have a paid off balance, the statement shows $0 balance owing nada, something somewhere, still reports a 10% utilization on that credit card? BTW, I do pay off or pay down various accounts by the due date or ending date, whichever is applicable.
No US Bank accounts.
I am capable of spending enough to reflect a 1% balance and letting that cycle but I thought having a ZERO balance would translate to the 0 being blended in with other percentages to achieve the average. So, that's what I have been doing on certain accounts that don't return any CB or travel rewards.
It really sounds like you're overthinking this... If it's only banks that report statement balance, then let 1 report something under 10%.
Say you have 5 cards, each with a $2000 credit line, for a total of $10000 credit line. You pay 4 off before the statement, so they report $0. The other reports $100.
Your overall utilization is (0+0+0+0+100)/10000 = 1%
The individual utilizations are: 0/2000 = 0% for the first four, 100/2000 = 5% for the fourth.
There is nothing else going on. No other blending of numbers or any kind of $0 balance penalty or anything like that.