BOA reporting balance other than statement balance?

[money_talks]

My statement cut on 7/23 and the statement balance usually hits my CR in a couple of days. I checked my Experian CR today and noticed my BOA reported balance is my account balance as of 7/29, which is different from my statement balance on 7/23/14. Now, I didn't check my Experian before today. Maybe BOA was late in reporting my statement balance and when they finally got around to reporting to the CRAs, they reported my current balance rather than my latest statement balance.

I'm curious to know what happened here and whether BOA's policy is to report your statement balance or the most recent balance they have on you, statement or not. This is concerning if this happens often because you may app for something thinking your CR only contains your low statement balance, run up the balance before the app and only to find out later you were declined on the app and wasted an inquiry because BOA reported your most recent high balance, leading to a high UTIL.

[DaveSignal]

If there is a fraud alert, your address changes, your credit limit changes, you upgrade to visa signature, product change.... basically if anything significant happens to your account, they will report the current balance at that time.

[money_talks]

DaveSignal, thanks.

I did have a change to my account after the statement cut, so that would explain that. Is this typical with most banks or just BOA?

I guess checking all 3 CRs before an app is the only way to avoid surprises after a denial of credit.

[DaveSignal]

BoA is not the only bank that will do a mid-cycle update, but BoA is known to do it every time something like this happens.  It happens to me every 3 months when I pay my UK electric bill online and, for some unknown reason, they keep flagging the transaction for me to verify before it gets approved.

I genearlly keep low utilization, but I don't manipulate my balances for the best FICO scores until right before I plan on applying for something.  So, for me, I don't worry about it until the month I want to app, then I try to pay a bunch of cards early to get some more $0 balances reporting, and then I check my credit reports to make sure everything looks the way I want it io.  I don't app that frequently, though.  My next two cards might be Freedom and Sallie Mae, but I probably won't apply for them at least for another year when I will be back in the USA.  But before I do, I will manipulate my balances and check my reports as mentioned.

[money_talks]

Good stuff DaveSignal. Yes, the advice I've read on these forums is that unless your apping, there is no need to play the FICO optimal score games. FICO has no memory of previous balances. Just keep util low like you say (less than 50% at least I've read) as high balances on your accounts might cause concern for your current lenders.

[DaveSignal]

You aren't going to see AA for hitting 50% util unless it is prolonged, and you are making late payments... or if all of your cards are at high util and you are paying minimums for an extended period of time, which would be a sign that you are not living within your means and could be about to spiral out of control.

You are right that one reason for keeping a low util is that you don't want to start carrying balances and paying minimums on multiple cards so as to avoid AA and leave a good impression with your current creditors that you are pro at this stuff.  Also, if you are paying interest on a rewards card, that will usually more than negate the benefit of the rewards.  I usually pay off what I spend during the previous billing period on the due date, in full.  This keeps me always in a grace period so I don't need to pay interest and IME, it gets me significant CLIs when I ask for them.  Once in awhile I will carry balances, but it is always done on one of my CU cards (NFCU does 0% offers frequently).  I never do it on a card that I actually use for rewards purchases and I always have a plan to pay x amount in x time before the offer expires (and I don't use the card for anything else).   

But I don't make multiple payments on my regular cards or try to time extra payments to just before the statement date... its unneccssary work unless planning to app for something.

It helps to have higher credit limits, which make it easy to keep util low without trying.  If you have good payment history, are not carrying balances, and are getting near 50% total util, then you should try asking for some CLIs.  Plan them out though, they could be hard pulls.