I play the 1 card reports a balance less than 10% and all the other cards report a 0 balance every month and my FICO score on TU was 767 last month......However, last month right before my statement was about to cut on my Discover Card, I had a pending transaction that I could not pay before the cut date, so I ended up with 2 cards reporting less than 10%....I checked my free FICO Score on my DISCOVER Account, and my TU score dropped from 767 to 758. Can it really drop 9 points from having 1 card reporting a small balance to 2 cards reporting a small balance?........experts please share your experience and advice. Thank You!
$600 
$6500 
$30k 
16k 
12k VSiggy
Scores go up and down for any reason possible. So your score will bounce right back up in no time 
@Vegas247 wrote:I play the 1 card reports a balance less than 10% and all the other cards report a 0 balance every month and my FICO score on TU was 767 last month......However, last month right before my statement was about to cut on my Discover Card, I had a pending transaction that I could not pay before the cut date, so I ended up with 2 cards reporting less than 10%....I checked my free FICO Score on my DISCOVER Account, and my TU score dropped from 676 to 658. Can it really drop 9 points from having 1 card reporting a small balance to 2 cards reporting a small balance?........experts please share your experience and advice. Thank You!
Needless to say, the score is just an indicator of what's on your report. When you are maximizing your FICO score by allowing only one card to report a balance of less than 10%, your score represents the maximum it can be based on your credit profile. The moment that FICO "sweet spot" is broken, you get back to the "regular" scoring. I do the same thing, normally, but the one time I ended up paying all the cards to show 0 balance (that wasn't the intent, but it happened), my TU FICO went from 696 to 683. I know yours is different (two cards showing balances rather than none - as it was in my case), but the point is that the "sweet spot" was broken.
Hope that helps
@IamB2 wrote:
@Vegas247 wrote:I play the 1 card reports a balance less than 10% and all the other cards report a 0 balance every month and my FICO score on TU was 767 last month......However, last month right before my statement was about to cut on my Discover Card, I had a pending transaction that I could not pay before the cut date, so I ended up with 2 cards reporting less than 10%....I checked my free FICO Score on my DISCOVER Account, and my TU score dropped from 676 to 658. Can it really drop 9 points from having 1 card reporting a small balance to 2 cards reporting a small balance?........experts please share your experience and advice. Thank You!
Needless to say, the score is just an indicator of what's on your report. When you are maximizing your FICO score by allowing only one card to report a balance of less than 10%, your score represents the maximum it can be based on your credit profile. The moment that FICO "sweet spot" is broken, you get back to the "regular" scoring. I do the same thing, normally, but the one time I ended up paying all the cards to show 0 balance (that wasn't the intent, but it happened), my TU FICO went from 696 to 683. I know yours is different (two cards showing balances rather than none - as it was in my case), but the point is that the "sweet spot" was broken.
Hope that helps
For me it does not make much of a difference anymore since they changed the system. (EQ score watch) Due to the high limit I let less than 10% overall report and average on 7-8 out of 11 accounts and score does no longer change much. Also my Discover TU score is taken a few days before the statement cut date .. Score is available at the end of the month (Discover) and my closing date is at the beginning of the month. If you do not app for anything I would stop the hassle of micro managing payments and simply pay after statement cut date. When you get ready to apply yes then cosmetic on score is nice to do to gain a few points and show optimal CR.
@IamB2 wrote:
@Vegas247 wrote:I play the 1 card reports a balance less than 10% and all the other cards report a 0 balance every month and my FICO score on TU was 767 last month......However, last month right before my statement was about to cut on my Discover Card, I had a pending transaction that I could not pay before the cut date, so I ended up with 2 cards reporting less than 10%....I checked my free FICO Score on my DISCOVER Account, and my TU score dropped from 676 to 658. Can it really drop 9 points from having 1 card reporting a small balance to 2 cards reporting a small balance?........experts please share your experience and advice. Thank You!
Needless to say, the score is just an indicator of what's on your report. When you are maximizing your FICO score by allowing only one card to report a balance of less than 10%, your score represents the maximum it can be based on your credit profile. The moment that FICO "sweet spot" is broken, you get back to the "regular" scoring. I do the same thing, normally, but the one time I ended up paying all the cards to show 0 balance (that wasn't the intent, but it happened), my TU FICO went from 696 to 683. I know yours is different (two cards showing balances rather than none - as it was in my case), but the point is that the "sweet spot" was broken.
Hope that helps
That does help......so the 9 point drop on mine is not unusual if it's just off the "SWEET SPOT"......anyway did you get your 13 points back the next month?
@lg8302ch wrote:
@IamB2 wrote:
@Vegas247 wrote:I play the 1 card reports a balance less than 10% and all the other cards report a 0 balance every month and my FICO score on TU was 767 last month......However, last month right before my statement was about to cut on my Discover Card, I had a pending transaction that I could not pay before the cut date, so I ended up with 2 cards reporting less than 10%....I checked my free FICO Score on my DISCOVER Account, and my TU score dropped from 676 to 658. Can it really drop 9 points from having 1 card reporting a small balance to 2 cards reporting a small balance?........experts please share your experience and advice. Thank You!
Needless to say, the score is just an indicator of what's on your report. When you are maximizing your FICO score by allowing only one card to report a balance of less than 10%, your score represents the maximum it can be based on your credit profile. The moment that FICO "sweet spot" is broken, you get back to the "regular" scoring. I do the same thing, normally, but the one time I ended up paying all the cards to show 0 balance (that wasn't the intent, but it happened), my TU FICO went from 696 to 683. I know yours is different (two cards showing balances rather than none - as it was in my case), but the point is that the "sweet spot" was broken.
Hope that helps
For me it does not make much of a difference anymore since they changed the system. (EQ score watch) Due to the high limit I let less than 10% overall report and average on 7-8 out of 11 accounts and score does no longer change much. Also my Discover TU score is taken a few days before the statement cut date .. Score is available at the end of the month (Discover) and my closing date is at the beginning of the month. If you do not app for anything I would stop the hassle of micro managing payments and simply pay after statement cut date. When you get ready to apply yes then cosmetic on score is nice to do
Since they started offering it i've noticed the scores bounce around month to month with a variation between 5-20 pts.
@Vegas247 wrote:That does help......so the 9 point drop on mine is not unusual if it's just off the "SWEET SPOT"......anyway did you get your 13 points back the next month?
It took me a couple of months to get it back (mainly cuz I had some expenses at the last minute and the next month I allowed two cards to report), but yeah for the most part it came back.
LOL...I went back to my 1 card reports less than 10% this month, and my score cameback to exactly 767 for my transunion score.....
@Vegas247 wrote:I play the 1 card reports a balance less than 10% and all the other cards report a 0 balance every month and my FICO score on TU was 767 last month......However, last month right before my statement was about to cut on my Discover Card, I had a pending transaction that I could not pay before the cut date, so I ended up with 2 cards reporting less than 10%....I checked my free FICO Score on my DISCOVER Account, and my TU score dropped from 767 to 758. Can it really drop 9 points from having 1 card reporting a small balance to 2 cards reporting a small balance?........experts please share your experience and advice. Thank You!
It is possible. I never tested it with TU but the older version of EQ gave me 45+ difference for reporting balances on over 50% of my accounts with same util But don't stress... if not apping for anything that does not matter and by reporting the balance the chances of CLIs are better for some lenders. At least Discover has given me CLIs since I stopped that 0 balance reporting because it was simply too much pain. I only do it now before an app