Ok, but you didn't mention the financial considerations in your reply, only the FICO points aspect. Balance in understanding the issues is important when we are putting out information for others to use in decisionmaking.
The Myth is that it will "kill" or otherwise physically harm you to have a 90% card, with no reference points. That's where I take issue. Yes, the score is likely to decline, but that is not the end of the world.
@NRB525 wrote:Ok, but you didn't mention the financial considerations in your reply, only the FICO points aspect. Balance in understanding the issues is important when we are putting out information for others to use in decisionmaking.
The Myth is that it will "kill" or otherwise physically harm you to have a 90% card, with no reference points. That's where I take issue. Yes, the score is likely to decline, but that is not the end of the world.
Lol agreed my friend agreed
Only reason I didn't mention it $$$$$$ wise at first was because it was another person that injected their experience into the thread and not the OP
Cem ....You.....Lol
All good tho on all points 
@myjourney wrote:
@NRB525 wrote:
@cem13 wrote:My story is even better. I have $5K Visa Siggy and $5K AMEX with PenFed. I use the Visa Siggy as my back up card to NFCU because it is my only Siggy. I run about $100 per month on the card and always PIF.
A guess here; with the $5k limit and ~$100 per month over many months, you haven't shown PenFed that you need more credit.
If it were me? I'd go ahead and transfer $3k to the $5k PenFed offer, take advantage of the low APR, and pay down the remainder on the other source card, where it sits, wherever that is.
The belief that 90% utilization will "tank your score" is something of an urban myth. How many points do you expect it will cost? I've maxed out many a BT offer, to 90%+, and my scores are always within a range. They were lower due to overall high utilization, but one card carrying a large amount will cost you only a few points. It won't be a 100 point event.
Then later, in the long run, because you will have shown PenFed the ability to utilize their $5k CL and pay it down, your chances of getting a CLI are much improved.This is a surprise coming from you and I have to truly disagree
There's no myth whatsoever here
Fico looks at CC debt in 2 ways
1) overall UTL of all cards
2) each individual cards UTL
Anything over 70-75% on a card is considered maxed out and reflected in scoring
Having overall UTL of 90% or having 1 card over 90% will certainly ding your scores and I might add it's a MAJOR ding
A card is not considered to be in "max out" territory until utilization is something North of 85%. Really not sure if there is a hard line but, 70% to 75% does not represent a "max out". Will score be adversely affected by high utilization on one card?
The correct answer is that it depends on the profile. In 3/2014 I allowed a $4000 CL card report a balance of $3202 (80%). My Fico 08 score change was exactly zero points. I have a total of 5 revolving ccs and one AMEX charge card. For the above example, my AG UT% remained under 5% with 5 of 6 cards reporting balances according to my TU credit report.
In NRB525's case, he has in excess of 20 active cc accounts as I recall. If one of his low, $500 CL cards, reports a very high UT% I would frankly be surprised if his score changed much. The affect of the card's balance on AG UT% would be negligible.
If someone has 3 cards and allows one to report 90% utilization, I would not be surprised to see a 25 to 30 point drop particularly if AG UT goes significantly above 30%.
General advice to a poster really needs to be based on that person's profile.
The Fico 08 model weighs aggregate utilization more heavily than individual card utilization. Fico 04 mistakenly - IMO gave excessive weight to individual cards. At the end of the day, managing overall credit is key and allowing a card to report a high utilization to take advantage of some offer does not represent high risk. Depending on one's scorecard assignment, score implications associated with individual card utilization are weighed quite differently in Fico 08 as evidenced by data presented on this forum.
@Thomas_Thumb wrote:
@myjourney wrote:
@NRB525 wrote:
@cem13 wrote:My story is even better. I have $5K Visa Siggy and $5K AMEX with PenFed. I use the Visa Siggy as my back up card to NFCU because it is my only Siggy. I run about $100 per month on the card and always PIF.
A guess here; with the $5k limit and ~$100 per month over many months, you haven't shown PenFed that you need more credit.
If it were me? I'd go ahead and transfer $3k to the $5k PenFed offer, take advantage of the low APR, and pay down the remainder on the other source card, where it sits, wherever that is.
The belief that 90% utilization will "tank your score" is something of an urban myth. How many points do you expect it will cost? I've maxed out many a BT offer, to 90%+, and my scores are always within a range. They were lower due to overall high utilization, but one card carrying a large amount will cost you only a few points. It won't be a 100 point event.
Then later, in the long run, because you will have shown PenFed the ability to utilize their $5k CL and pay it down, your chances of getting a CLI are much improved.This is a surprise coming from you and I have to truly disagree
There's no myth whatsoever here
Fico looks at CC debt in 2 ways
1) overall UTL of all cards
2) each individual cards UTL
Anything over 70-75% on a card is considered maxed out and reflected in scoring
Having overall UTL of 90% or having 1 card over 90% will certainly ding your scores and I might add it's a MAJOR ding
A card is not considered to be in "max out" territory until utilization is something North of 85%. Really not sure if there is a hard line but, 70% to 75% does not represent a "max out". Will score be adversely affected by high utilization on one card?
In NRB525's case, he has in excess of 20 active cc accounts as I recall. If one of his low, $500 CL cards, reports a very high UT% I would frankly be surprised if his score changed much. The affect of the card's balance on AG UT% would be negligible.
.
I'm not NRB525, but I have a vaguely similar anecdote. I had a $1k line of credit with Citibank (CheckingPlus, had it for almost a decade) unintentionally report $950 used after a while of no balance. That change cost me about 13 points. Overall that was about 1% of my total revolving credit lines so it didn't affect util by more than 1%.
A week later a payoff of a $3k balance on another card gave me 23 points back.
Just anecdote, but I remember getting a headache from slamming my forehead into my desk when I saw that balance post. I was going to pay it a day earlier but forgot.
I'm almost 60 points up from that low just a month ago, but it was definitely undesired. 
@Thomas_Thumb wrote:
@myjourney wrote:
@NRB525 wrote:
@cem13 wrote:My story is even better. I have $5K Visa Siggy and $5K AMEX with PenFed. I use the Visa Siggy as my back up card to NFCU because it is my only Siggy. I run about $100 per month on the card and always PIF.
A guess here; with the $5k limit and ~$100 per month over many months, you haven't shown PenFed that you need more credit.
If it were me? I'd go ahead and transfer $3k to the $5k PenFed offer, take advantage of the low APR, and pay down the remainder on the other source card, where it sits, wherever that is.
The belief that 90% utilization will "tank your score" is something of an urban myth. How many points do you expect it will cost? I've maxed out many a BT offer, to 90%+, and my scores are always within a range. They were lower due to overall high utilization, but one card carrying a large amount will cost you only a few points. It won't be a 100 point event.
Then later, in the long run, because you will have shown PenFed the ability to utilize their $5k CL and pay it down, your chances of getting a CLI are much improved.This is a surprise coming from you and I have to truly disagree
There's no myth whatsoever here
Fico looks at CC debt in 2 ways
1) overall UTL of all cards
2) each individual cards UTL
Anything over 70-75% on a card is considered maxed out and reflected in scoring
Having overall UTL of 90% or having 1 card over 90% will certainly ding your scores and I might add it's a MAJOR ding
A card is not considered to be in "max out" territory until utilization is something North of 85%. Really not sure if there is a hard line but, 70% to 75% does not represent a "max out". Will score be adversely affected by high utilization on one card?
The correct answer is that it depends on the profile. In 3/2014 I allowed a $4000 CL card report a balance of $3202 (80%). My Fico 8 score change was exactly zero points. I have a total of 5 revolving ccs and one AMEX charge card. For the above example, my AG UT% remained under 5% with 5 of 6 cards reporting balances according to my TU credit report.
In NRB525's case, he has in excess of 20 active cc accounts as I recall. If one of his low, $500 CL cards, reports a very high UT% I would frankly be surprised if his score changed much. The affect of the card's balance on AG UT% would be negligible.
If someone has 3 cards and allows one to report 90% utilization, I would not be surprised to see a 20 to 30 point drop depending on the resulting AG UT%
General advice to a poster really needs to be based on that person's profile.
The Fico 8 model weighs aggregate utilization more heavily than individual card utilization. Fico 4 mistakenly - IMO gave excessive weight to individual cards. At the end of the day, managing overall credit is key and allowing a card to report a high utilization to take advantage of some offer does not represent high risk. Depending on one's scorecard assignment, score implications associated with individual card utilization are weighed differently.
Some good points in your post and we've established all profiles are different thus so are the effects ....However
This came up so much that maybe a couple of years ago we went to the expert for a deciding answer ....which was Fico's own and renowned author and spokes person on Fico scoring etc etc (Barry) and his answer was at the time ....Before 08 model now granted but
Maxed out is 70-75%
So sorry I'll have to go with Barry on this one
FYI also I have over 25+ CC's on my CR's 3 of which are closed with long history as well and still his profile and mine can be miles apart....and last month I posted a 8848.00 balance on a 9k card ...cost me 5 points and those 5 points plus 1 came back this month after PIF
So again his profile and my profile are not the norm here....
Edit to add ....this is you correct what changed in 6 months or is it a YMMV when you feel then need?
So, yet again, I must raise my point about the language used to describe "maxing out a single card". If many stories have it at no, or 5, or 11 or even 15 points, why does the language get so apocryphal about it:
Tank
Major Ding
Kill.
It alarms people who haven't experienced a maxed out single card, and causes them to take actions (like not utilizing a BT offer for a $5k card) that would be beneficial for them financially, because of urban myth language that their ear will fall off if utilization goes over 30%.
myjourney wrote:
Some good points in your post and we've established all profiles are different thus so are the effects ....However
This came up so much that maybe a couple of years ago we went to the expert for a deciding answer ....which was Fico's own and renowned author and spokes person on Fico scoring etc etc (Barry) and his answer was at the time ....Before 08 model now granted but
Maxed out is 70-75%
So sorry I'll have to go with Barry on this one
FYI also I have over 25+ CC's on my CR's 3 of which are closed with long history as well and still his profile and mine can be miles apart....and last month I posted a 8848.00 balance on a 9k card ...cost me 5 points and those 5 points plus 1 came back this month after PIF
So again his profile and my profile are not the norm here....
Edit to add ....this is you correct what changed in 6 months or is it a YMMV when you feel then need?
[Note: my Fico 8 scores from all three CRAs reported at 850 so the Fico 8 model likely looks at payments relative to balance (e.g. pay in full every month) where as the Fico 4 model does not. - from 6/10/2015 post per your link.]
Myjourney,
My fico 8 has remained at 850 since 2/2014. Thus, the comment relative to Fico 08 regarding score change (or lack thereof). No point change any month regardless of # cards reporting or utilization changes.
Notwithstanding, EQ Fico 4 has changed. It went up from from 765 to 796 and then later to 809 after a lone inquiry dropped off. At the time of that post I did not realize that, in addition to 80% utilization, # cards reporting (5 of 6) could also have beeen a factor that negatively impacted Fico 04 score. Again, no effect on Fico 08.
@Thomas_Thumb wrote:
@myjourney wrote:
@Thomas_Thumb wrote:
@myjourney wrote:
@NRB525 wrote:
@cem13 wrote:My story is even better. I have $5K Visa Siggy and $5K AMEX with PenFed. I use the Visa Siggy as my back up card to NFCU because it is my only Siggy. I run about $100 per month on the card and always PIF.
A guess here; with the $5k limit and ~$100 per month over many months, you haven't shown PenFed that you need more credit.
If it were me? I'd go ahead and transfer $3k to the $5k PenFed offer, take advantage of the low APR, and pay down the remainder on the other source card, where it sits, wherever that is.
The belief that 90% utilization will "tank your score" is something of an urban myth. How many points do you expect it will cost? I've maxed out many a BT offer, to 90%+, and my scores are always within a range. They were lower due to overall high utilization, but one card carrying a large amount will cost you only a few points. It won't be a 100 point event.
Then later, in the long run, because you will have shown PenFed the ability to utilize their $5k CL and pay it down, your chances of getting a CLI are much improved.This is a surprise coming from you and I have to truly disagree
Some good points in your post and we've established all profiles are different thus so are the effects ....However
This came up so much that maybe a couple of years ago we went to the expert for a deciding answer ....which was Fico's own and renowned author and spokes person on Fico scoring etc etc (Barry) and his answer was at the time ....Before 08 model now granted but
Maxed out is 70-75%
So sorry I'll have to go with Barry on this one
FYI also I have over 25+ CC's on my CR's 3 of which are closed with long history as well and still his profile and mine can be miles apart....and last month I posted a 8848.00 balance on a 9k card ...cost me 5 points and those 5 points plus 1 came back this month after PIF
So again his profile and my profile are not the norm here....
Edit to add ....this is you correct what changed in 6 months or is it a YMMV when you feel then need?
My fico 8 has been at 850 since 2/2014. No point change any month from then to now. EQ Fico 4 has changed from 765 to 777 to 796 to 809.
Not the point here
The message is clear be consitent in the info you feed others ....whereas you stated maxed out in this thread as 90% vs 6 months ago when you stated and I
"Whenever a balance gets reported that is more than 75% (or 80%) of your credit line, it is viewed as maxed out by most Fico scoring models."
We don't need your scores here it has no bearing on the info you posted .....I'm out now before for the 1st time in history I loose my FSR
@cuz someone wants to blow their own horn @ 90% today and 75% tomorrow....Lol Get it?