Right now my score sits at 672 because of somewhere around a 30% utilization. I don't have the cash in the next 2 months to pay down my balance.

What are some other ways to decrease my utilization right now, so that I can jump on some of the current offers. Right now my utilization is too high.

Call citi and ask for a CLI?
Apply for a card that is easy to get, that will decrease my Utilization in the short term?

Thanks in Advance

Best thing is to quit worring about offers and spend more time cleaning up the clutter.

Free miles often encourage more debt...never ever had a totally free trip, even on an expenses account..

Wait on credit card/miles deals and get your financial life in much better shape. Don't worry, there will be other (and maybe better) deals available when you are ready to apply for more cards.

You do understand that paying off your card in full every month won't give you a 0% utilization, no? From CreditKarma.com:

"You do not have to carry a credit card balance from month to month to show credit card utilization. Simply using your card is enough to show activity, even if you pay the balance in full and never accrue interest. Credit card balances are reported by the issuer every 30 days based on the balance on that particular day. There is no distinction between revolving and paid-in-full balances on your credit report."

I've seen my utilization at >100%, and I never carry a balance on any card. Right now my score is 766 with 33% utilization, so I'm guessing you have something else dragging down your score.

If you have balances that you can't pay down right now you could get a business card that does not report to personal like Citi AAdvantage business visa and hope you get a big enough limit so you can transfer your other balances to it so they won't show on your report. Chase has business cards that don't report also.

If you are paying high interest rates on credit cards you can't pay down you can check at credit unions to get lower interest installment loan to pay off the credit cards. The installment debt will not count against your revolving utilization. It factors into your reports more like a car loan.

For the cards you don't carry a balance on, if you pay the day before the statement cuts it will not show on your report as utilization.

It's a game. You have to know when your credit card company reports to the reporting agencies. Each card company is different. One card I have reports the last Thursday of each month. The other card reports two days after the due date.

From what I gather all (most) companies, except Amex (just cant figure out Amex - they are still showing my December balance even though I havent used the card at all this year), reports on your statement cutoff date. Therefore, if you pay your balance in full a day before the cut off date (on the CC site) then your utilization will be lower. Unfortunately most of the cards that I use on a day to day basis are Visa Signature, Amex Premier or World MC - therefore the reported limit on these cards is high balance, not the credit card limit. For example, my Marriott Rewards card has a $35k limit, but on any given month when I travel I may run and therefore report $3-5k which is at or "full utilization" on the card or an artifically high utitlization even though I generally pay my credit card balances (except for a life of loan zero % deal) in full on each due date.

Generally speaking, if you are carrying a balance, you are eating up any benefit you are getting from these "offers" in interest payments. You might miss today's great offer, but there will be others tomorrow.

Interesting, i just found out my previous two citi cards are reporting as not having a preset spending limit. This is actually hurting my score, as I was able to get a CLI on both of these cards, yet don't have anything to show for it.

According to my credit karma profile, the only way to get my score back above 700 is to get approved for a card with close to a 10,000 limit.

What to do

I got a new cc with $15k credit line. I shifted my purchases there but did not increase overall debt. Credit score went up 50 points. Utilization ratio wet down since total credit increased $15k.

Chase typically closes on your "next closing date", find this in the account details area. This is different for each card you have. Chase does not have one set day of the month pattern for reporting balances and the report goes out to all three agencies, not just one.

I verified this will their lending services who confirmed for each of my cards which days chase would report. They confirmed this tends to be 3 days after the due date which is what my acct details show as well.