Maxing out balance transfer but leaving other cards@zero..advice needed

[percy81]

Hey myficoers,

I've got medical expenses to take care of since the birth of our baby 6 weeks ago. Just waiting on our health insurance to finish their end of the deal. I was looking at discover personal loan but decided to go with Citi Simplicty for multiple reasons I will not bore you with.

Here's the actual question....I've already put some of the hospital bills on my credit cards and those are the cards I want to transfer over to my new citi card. By doing this I will have pretty much MAXED out my balance transfer card but leaving my other cards at ZERO balance. How will this effect my credit score having a card completely maxed out and the others at zero? I plan on paying it off rather quickly. As of right now my UTI is @ 16% with most of the hospital bills included in that (waiting on a couple more), does th credit scoring method just see my available credit altogether or will I be penalized for maxing one card?

Sorry for tyoos or grammar mistakes, using my iPhone

[Anonymous]

@Percy81,

Congrats on the new cutie  Having a card max out is going to impact your FICO negatively.  But if you are not planning on applying for any card or anything, then I wouldn't worry about it if you intend to pay it off quickly.

Keep in mind, FICO has no memory..  So once you pay it down, you should be fine

[JSS3]

I did the same thing. You lose points for having more than 30% on one card, but having all others at 0 definitely offsets that. You get an A as far as how many cards are reporting balances. No worries.

[takeshi74]

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@percy81 wrote:
How will this effect my credit score having a card completely maxed out and the others at zero?

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Both individual and overall utilization matter.  However, short term high utilization generally isn't an issue.  It's prolonged high utilization that can lead to AA.  That said, you want to get it down from maxed ASAP.  It's not just score that matters but risk assessment.

Don't let the tail wag the dog.  Scoring doesn't sound like it's your top priority at this point.  Your score will recover when you get the balance on that card back down.

[percy81]

Great responses, thank you! 😉

I was contemplating calling their backdoor number to ask for a higher initial credit limit to avoid the high uti, but after some research on this forum, looks like not too many people have much success even with another hard pull that I don't want to have. I will just take the short term risk of a heavy uti on one card providing that my other cards don't see the maxed out card and freak out and begin credit limit DECREASING me in fear I'm running a credit muck haha 😜

[CH-7-Mission-Accomplished]

You will get a big hit if you let that card report 90% or more of its limit.

Keep that card at 89% of its limit and put the remainder on another card.  Your score will be higher.

[Anonymous]

I've done it. However, I was paying large amounts every month so the lender didn't seem to care.

[percy81]

UPDATE:

Okay, I transferred all of my balances from my high interest card to my new citi simplicity card. I ended up using 82% of my credit limit to take full advantage of the zero APR because I'm not planning on applying for anything in the next 21 months that the offer is good for. I was worried that A.) the high utilization was going to KILL my credit score (I know fico has no memory and money saved is better than a great score but ...us myficoers love having fico swag 😉) and B.) I was worried that all my other credit cards would see the high usage on my Citi card and start decreasing my line of credit.

I transferred my debt over from three cards. 2 were major credit cards and one was a store card. The first major card and store card reported it's ZERO balance this week and my score went UP 17POINTS not to mention having the new account boosted my score of 6 points which I'm shocked about...I normally lose a few points with a new account!!!! Today my 82% high usage Citi card report my balance and I lost 18 points.

So with the two cards reporting a zero balance and the new account being added I gained 23 POINTS. With the citii high UTI reporting I loss 18 of those 23 points gained. Leaving me with a net of 5 points gained from all of this debt moving. ON TOP OF THAT...I still have ONE more major credit card to report a zero balance and that chase freedom card had the highest balance of them all, so I'm quite eager to see how many points I gain from that reporting a zero balance. It should be reporting tomorrow or the next day and I WILL update that increase aswell.

With all that said, I was worried about doing the balance transfer in fear of my excellent credit score taking a dump but I gained instead. My disgust ion could be different from another's situation and have more of a negative effect as YMMV. But when you're switching debt around to SAVE MONEY and not planning on applying for a mortgage or car loan then I suggest risking the short term credit ding to save the money. That's why I did the risk of nearly maxing a card out to save a couple thousand dollars in interest for 21 months. I will knock that balance down quick, aswell. Looking forward to see what my score will be when that is paid off considering I gain some from this debt moving adventure.
HAPPY FICOING LADIES AND GENTS. 😉

[percy81]

*not my disgust ion... MY situation could be different dang iphone corrector