New SS # Got Discover IT and Capital One CC and have been maxing them out, BAD or Good?

[SamH08]

So I've received a new social because I started working from being a international student. To establish my credit I decided to get couple of credit cards and after applying for Chase Slate, Capital one platinum master card and Discover it card I've been approved to Capital One and Discover CCs. (Credit limit of 300 and 500 both approved online right away).

Anyways sooner or later I will have to get loans for house, cars and etc so I wanted to increase my CL and I've heard one thing and saw another.

1st, My friend who also got employed after graduating has been using his credit card with high utilization 50%+ and he got 2 CLI in past 6 months. My uncle who wanted a CLI asked me to call his Credit Card company(capital one) since he speaks little english and what the rep from Capital One told me is that my uncle doesn't use his credit card enough (his utilization was around 10%, 100 dollars per month on 1000 CL card) for them to give him any CLI.

2nd, I've been looking around reading stuff on this forum and been noticing that people get their credit score increase from keeping utilization around 9~10%.

So here's what I did, not knowing that I'm suppose to keep my utilization low I've max'ed out my CCs in 2 weeks and paid off right when it was maxed out and spent over 50% again and paid off before statement came out. On statements I've only gotten 0 balance so far so I'm hoping that CC company didn't report me as having lot of debt. I've been doing this for past 2 months so I guess I utilized my credit cards around 200% each months? I'm only spending that much because I pay bills, get groceries, get gas, buy dinner/lunch and etc.

Will this hurt my credit score? Should I be applying for more cards to increase my total credit limit increased?

I saw on Capital One mail about getting higher CLI if I use my card "at least once next 5 months" and "make first 5 payment on time". 

With what it said on the mail, I used my experience with what my uncle got as response, I assumed that if I max my credit cards every month I'd probably end up with huge credit limit increase. I do make 55k a year(although I am considering going back to schoo for my masters) as an environmental engineer and I recently made a savings account too. 

any advices would be helpful,

Thanks guys 

[SamH08]

Oh and no credit union even have any credit scores for me so I didn't even bother pulling fico score lol I did see that L2C score?(got from discover card) was 745 but I don't even know what that means....

[webhopper]

Welcome to the forum!  Do not apply for more cards.

Keep utilization on the cards below 10%... The best way to do this is to pay the charges in full before the statement is issued for the month. That way, when the statement is issued, it will say you owe $0

[TiggerDat]

For best reporting to the credit bureaus you need 3-4 accounts.

For best scores you should not have more than 40% of util, although 10% is still best for most people and 20% for others.  Since you are new to credit - 10%.

There is a downloadable booklet from FICO which is very helpful to understand much of this on the screen where you sign in at.  You should take a moment and read through it.  It will help to explain some of this better and get you on the right track. 

What Capital One said is just a list of prefabricated answers they give to everyone to avoid having to do anything for the customer.  I have not used my card much in the past year and have been bumped up twice in the limit.  I did have to go through the executive office route to do so.  Less than a year ago my limit was $500 and now it is $3500.  Your uncle might have to go this route too if he has been with them for at least a year, but two is better.  There are stories out there of people who have banked with Capital One for 10 years and had a $500 credit card and the CSRs simply tell them they keep their limit up to date.  Then the people get online and apply for an account and get $10,000 limits or more.  If they had kept my limit up to date, then why was the EO able to give me a limit of $3,500?  Logic dictates that if the limit were up to date, then the EO could not have done that! 

You might want to call them and ask about any offers to upgrade the account too.  That is almost funny also.

[SamH08]

Thanks for all the replies! I guess I should stop using my credit cards so much and start using debit card again.

So pretty much it's better to use 10% of your CL and pay it off every month when statement comes out.

I will get on that route starting this month.

I'll rotate each cards and maybe only use them for gas lol

p.s.

I just applied to Amex Green card, Capital One New Comer card and Barclay reward card?

Amex denied, Capital One said something about waiting 65 days since the day I got a credit card with them so apply in like 2 weeks or so and barclay is gonna take their sweet time lol.

[longtimelurker]

Just a note that the utilization that people are referring to here is the balance reported when the statement cuts.  So you didn't do 200% utilization (which, if allowed, would be very bad for your score)!.  You just spent twice the CL in a month.    There is nothing bad scorewise about spending up to your credit limit and paying it off midcycle, and repeating, providing when the statement cuts you are not more than 10-20% of your credit limit.

[SamH08]

Oh I see discovery rep actually told me they report on 19th every month. I guess I just gotta watch out for that. Ill call capital one to see when they report