Age of your oldest account and/or the average age of your accounts

[Anonymous]

Captool is (as usual) right.  The card is reporting the Amount Owed on the top of the statement.  Check your credit reports and you'll be able to see that this is true.  If you don't have a tool that gives you regular access to your credit reports, I suggest you join Credit Karma, which will give you access at no cost to your EQ and TU reports as often as once a week.  (I would ignore their scores.)

I noticed that you wrote "I always carry a balance on my card. Due to I auto PIF I never pay interest on the cards."  Just for clarity, to carry a balance means that you are NOT paying in full.  Example: your statement prints with a $200 Amount Owed.  You pay $50 in the next few weeks, more than the Minimum Payment required but less than the $200 you owed.  The difference ($150) is carried over to the next billing cycle and on that $150 you will be later charged interest.

So what you probably meant was: I always have a balance on my credit card when the statement prints.  That's the same as saying that your card is always reporting a balance but is different from you always carrying a balance.

In terms of an automatic way to pay a card to $0 the day before a statement prints (and this cause it to report $0) -- I am pretty sure there is no way to do this.  With one exception.  If the card in question always has the same balance every month (e.g. you use it to pay your Netflix as a recurring charge and nothing else) then you could use a billpay feature from a checking account to always pay that amount a few days before the statement prints.

There's really not much advantage in doing this, however.  Because in the rare situations where you need all of your cards except one to report $0, you can just do that manually.  Most months you won't have that urgent need to squeeze every extra point out of your score.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I noticed that you wrote "I always carry a balance on my card. Due to I auto PIF I never pay interest on the cards."  Just for clarity, to carry a balance means that you are NOT paying in full.  Example: your statement prints with a $200 Amount Owed.  You pay $50 in the next few weeks, more than the Minimum Payment required but less than the $200 you owed.  The difference ($150) is carried over to the next billing cycle and on that $150 you will be later charged interest.

So what you probably meant was: I always have a balance on my credit card when the statement prints.  That's the same as saying that your card is always reporting a balance but is different from you always carrying a balance. 

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My bad. Thanks for explanation. So, I never carry a balance.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the prompt and thorough reply, Mamontov!  (I am refering to your answer to all the questions in bold green).

The most important news you gave us is that you don't have any important credit needs coming up in the next two years (and that you already have several credit cards).

Given that, you are in easy street.  We can give you some ways to improve your score when you need to squeeze out every additional point.  But these are strategies that do not need to be practiced every month.  Repeat: you can IGNORE these "short term" strategies as part of your general "long game" strategy of improving your credit profile and score.  They will NOT help you at all in terms of long range improvement.

Basically the short term strategy would be the one I am sure you have heard before here.  Let exactly one of your cards report a smallish balance ($20 whatever).  And then have all your other cards report $0.  Given that right now all of your cards are reporting a balance, that may well give you a significant little boost.

You might also get some extra points if your installment loan went down to just under 9% rather than 20% (which is where it is now).  That said, it's more important to make sure you stretch the life of the loan out to its full allowable term.  So don't do anything to cause the I-loan to pay off early.

Intermediate term?  You will get some extra points when those three inquiries cross over 365 days.  You might get some advantage when your oldest credit card is at least 2 years old.  (Not a big deal.)  You will also get some extra points when your AAoA crosses each integer year value (though that may stop happening as much after your AAoA is > 4. 

Long term?  You will get no scoring advantage from having any more cards -- seven is plenty.  Watch your installment loan.  If it gets close to closing, and you don't have any other open I-loan, you will benefit from repeating what you did before and getting another and paying it down.

You are in great shape.  If I were you I'd just keep your head down and keep doing what you do.  You will be over 800 in a few years.

PS.  Your age of oldest account is currently 60 months.  When the account falls off your reports, it will be the age of your oldest open account (currently 48 months).  FICO does not give a preference to open accounts vs. closed in doing its age factors.

[Anonymous]

CreditGuyInDixie, that is an awesome post. Thank you.

So, my target is to have AAoA 3.1 or 4.1 years

Hopefully I will not find great sign-up bonus or cachback/points CC in next 10 month )

[Anonymous]

My thinking is this.  If you can find an amazing deal (but make sure it is freakin a-MAZ-ing) then go for it.  I combined a couple Citibank promotions recently and got around $1300 tax-free.  That strikes me as well within the realm of "screw my AAoA, I am grabbing this."

I tend to be very conservative on this sort of thing, but the key point for you is that you don't have any credit needs coming up.  If that changes, and you see that you might be buying a house in the next 18 months, then everything changes.  Stop reading about CC offers and focus ONLY on the upcoming mortgage.

The other key is that you have several accounts.  Adding one more won't cause a huge change to your AAoA.