In terms of credit cards, what are the FICO utilization sweetspots? My next steps realistic?

[Devastator]

Sweetspots as in plural, as in the various points in which FICO score is impacted....

I'm looking at this:

Chevy Chase LOC 0/300 0%

Zync AMEX N/A

Student Discover  150/1500 10% -- Utilization. No balance carried, PIF every month. 

Cap One MC  0/1500  0% -- Sock drawer card.

Chasse Freedom Visa 700/1800 38%--Utilization. No balance carried, PIF every month. 

Credit Union Visa 3100/5000 63% --unfortunately carrying a balance, mandatory school related expenses, but it's not recurring. For now I can only pay slightly more than the minimum payment per month. 

That's an overal utilization of 39%. Should be down under 30% overall in a few months.  At 30% utilization, can one still get denied for "too high utilization"?  I know 1-9% is optimal for FICO, but I was curious as to what is considered high, or as to whether anything over 10% is considered high, i.e. if one has 75% overall utilization in lenders eyes it's the same as 35%. 

Also I understand that utilization on any one individual card can be bad, no matter if it's zeros on all others.  This is confusing.  I'm asking about this as I'd like to seek advice on my next credit steps and to see how realistic it is:

My next step in February of 2011 is to  1) Request CLI on the Chase and Discover cards. 2) Apply for AMEX clear.  

I want to apply for CLI's with a view to decreasing my utilization and showing that I can "handle" high limits before the summer.  I'd like the AMEX clear as it has cash rewards and reads like the most simple credit card to have/use on earth (it wouldn't carry a balance, I'd transfer bills there). 

Summer 2011: Apply for graduate school loans. 

Credit Report/profile:  669 according to creditkarma. Age of accounts about 4 years average.  Just closed three subprime cards, except the Captial One one that I listed. The Zync, Credit Union Visa and Discover are all new.   Marks on my report are two collection accounts -- one paid last month, nothing more owed, the other is disputed but will age out of the reports next month, leaving me with only one paid collection showing.    Perfect payment history on all my credit cards and installment loans.  Only just climbing out of subprime land, the collection accounts have been killing me. 

[vanillabean]

I see no reason why you need any CLI, much less why you would want it. I would actually discourage you from doing so given your present credit card debt.

If your purpose is to increase your util, there's a much better way to obtain just that, which is to pay part of your balances before the statement cut.

As such your reported balances go down, your util goes down, and your score goes up.

Let's say you have just one credit card with a $1,000 credit limit, and your monthly balance is $90. Your util is 9%.

How do you get to have a 1% util?

You can either get a $8,000 CLI, or you can pay $80 before the statement cut. The latter is far easier, safer and quicker.

The CRAs do not consider whether you can "handle" high limits. They look at the utils only (individual cards and overall) and to some extent at high balances.

The Credit Karma score is not a FICO score. Do you know your FICO score from one or several of the CRAs?