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I'm one of those that pay when I get paid, which is twice a month. For me that makes the most sense because I hate to see bills pile up. I've synched my payments so that I get statements roughly around payday. FWIW, chase never complained about me making too many payments...lol
Great news! Thanks. Do you know if the overall util matters the most or does individual card util matter as well? I expect to put some spend on my 5% rotating categories when they're in season, say maybe up to 30-50% on that single card but overall I will still be well <10%
@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
I am one of those young fellows y'all keep talking about here! For the long term, what's a good consistent util to keep under? It doesn't matter right? With my soon to be student budget I will never be above 6% overall even if I wait until statement cuts given the new accts and limits I now have. That's fine right? Multiple payments sound like a pain in the butt. I am on team PIF all the way btwConstant PIF monthly and 6% overall utilization is a recipe to get your scores to 800 in probably a year or year and a half considering where you're at already.
I go online to monitor my accounts almost everyday and pay them off at least twice a month. I never have to worry about due dates or worry if I have forgotten to make a payment. It does not appear to harm my score at all, as they seem to stay around 800 or better. Basically I'm a see a balance, pay the balance kind of person now. The only reason I even use CC is rewards, convenience, extend warranties and purchase protection. I never use CC to spend money I do not currently already have. If all cards are at 0 balance I can look at the balance in my checking account...that is my self imposed credit limit.
I have only one card(Amex BCP) that gets multiple payments. That's only because my two AU's and I pay at different times. Everything else is basically one lump payment after statement cuts. Unless you're trying to keep utilization down, I see no benefit in paying multiple times a month.
Capital one IME does like big payments.
When y'all say (credit card issuer) likes lump sum payments OR (credit card issuer) doesn't like multiple small payments, what exactly do you mean? I mean, what do you observe that indicates that they like or don't like it?
@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
It doesn't make a difference unless you want a CLI. Cap1 likes you to do one big payment vs multiple small payments. And for takeshi (whenever you want to come correct me) this is based on my personal experience with 4 cards from them and multiple user experiences. 2 of them I did smaller payments and two I just did one big lump sum and the two with the lump sum went up by $3k on one and $8k on the other and the 2 smaller payment ones didn't budge. Same cardsCome on 2011XTERROR, Don't rely on generalizations. It's your entire credit portfolio that is considered. Don't make assumptions. This is an extremely common topic. Don't overlook existing threads and discussions as a resource.
Interesting that you've had more success with Capital One when doing single large monthly payments. When you say it doesn't make a difference unless you want a CLI, what do you mean?
In about 30 days I'm looking to ask for my first Amex CLI. This month I was debating on several small payments or one large one at the end. My hesitation in saving it all for 1 large payment is that I plan to run up around 40-50% utilization on the card this month. If for some reason I'm SPd at the point of having utilization that high, and that SP is what is used when I request a CLI, I would think my results would be much worse than if it showed me at a 0 balance. Not sure if this rationale makes any sense or if I'm just overthinking it.
I have made one large and multiple smaller payments to Amex. I don't think it effected my relationship with them.
@kdm31091 wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:I still want to know what happens if a creditor soft pulls you mid-cycle when you have 40% utilization say 2-3 weeks before you request a CLI. Are they going to use that SP and your 40% utilization in their CLI request decision?
Perhaps this varies by creditor. Do some creditors take an instant SP at the time a CLI is requested, or do they all go off of the last one they have on file?
The problem is a lot of these questions have no real answer. I get that nobody wants to hear they are generalizing, but all we can really rely on are anecdotes which have a lot of different things going on -- different profiles, different scores, etc.
I sometimes pay multiple times and other times I just wait. I don't feel there's any major benefit to paying several times unless it helps you budget better.
Use your cards, make your payments however you see fit, and ask for CLIs when/if they're needed. I have never noticed a difference in a CLI being approved no matter what I did or didn't do. The only thing I have noticed is that most creditors want to see that you "need" a CLI if we're talking about a manual request. Hard to get a CLI if you use your 5k limit for a pack of gum every week. Again though that's just my generalization on the matter. Ultimately as long as the bill is paid I don't think creditors read into these things as much as we tend to.
Agreed!