Monthly Fee Cards to report zero balance?

[Alvy14]

I have two cards with monthly fees both are PIF.
If they report the statement amount to the CRAs, and don't charge the fee until they produce the statement. How can I get zero balance to report? Last month the annoying fee reported to bureaus, which took me to 3 cards reporting balances (when it's really only one I want to report for score optimization for mortgage). Help please

[myjourney]

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@Alvy14 wrote:
I have two cards with monthly fees both are PIF.
If they report the statement amount to the CRAs, and don't charge the fee until they produce the statement. How can I get zero balance to report? Last month the annoying fee reported to bureaus, which took me to 3 cards reporting balances (when it's really only one I want to report for score optimization for mortgage). Help please

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YMMV but have you tried to overpay the amount of the fee?

Some lenders allow you to pay a certain amount over the balance...Just a thought 

[Alvy14]

Well,

Credit One you could not pay in advance, but they agreed to credit the fee so it zeros out when statements cut (for this month, will have to beg for the same thing next month).

First Premier would not budge, no matter what I do i cannot get a zero balance to report with this fee charged each statement date.  Their only solution was for me to go down to Western Union and sent the fee payment in, which would allow the account to go into negative balance (unable to do so online or oh phone), so when the fee is charged tonight it will zero out.  Also the western union is like a $5 fee.  I cannot wait to close this card once the mortgage search is over.  Having to go to WU to send in an advance fee payment on a specified day each month, ridiculous!

Question.  Should i just let the 10$ fee post and not go through the trouble? Only difference would be 2 of 5 cards, instead of 1 of 5 cards reporting a balance, and total utlization would still be around 2%.  Is that that big of a difference to jump through all these hoops?