@Anonymous wrote:
Hi,
I am a newbie with credit and trying to educate myself. I have decided to take a"last minute" 2 week vacation and have a question about the best way to pay for it. The cost is 3k I am wondering if it would be beneficial for my FICO score to charge it to my credit card and pay it off right away or in 30 days. I have no problem paying cash either as points would be applied to a bank debit card program(not a great benifit scale though). My CL is 6k on the credit card with 0 balance. I recently bought some furniture for about 2k applied for store financing and was approved. The salesman said I was approved for double that and I plan to pay off in 6 months with even payments. My Transunion score is 681 and Equifax 676.
Also a few years ago I went through some tough financial timesand I'm looking for ways to build credit. Also I applied for the citicards expedia preferred card and was denied. I was a citicard holder while I had financial difficulties, the cards had 2k balances, were closed then and I had a payment plan that I went through and those accounts have been pif but remain closed. The reason stated for the denial "The credit privileges on your existing account(s) are currently restricted. " I called and they said that the accounts cannot be reopened...will I ever be considered creditworthy to them again?
IMO, it is best for your credit history to use it, so I would charge it and PIF by the due date.
FICO score will be lower for a month due to utilization, but that is meaningless unless you are applying for credit.
