Anyone else see a score boost when 2 CC report a balance?

[Anonymous]

Conventional wisdom around these boards is that you should let 1 card report a balance of <10% of its limit and all others should report a 0 balance. That is what I had been doing but a few months back I accidently let a 2nd card report a very small balance $40 on a $10k limit card and I got a 14 point score boost on EX. I decided that I would test this out a couple months just to see what happens and thought I would share my results here.

First I have 4 CC reporting plus 1 card that my wife is the main account holder and I am an AU.

Basically what I did was month 1 I let 1 of my cards report a $400 balance out of a $5k limit. 

Month 2 I let the same card report $400 but I let my AU card report $40. Result was my EX score increased by 14 points.

Month 3 I again let my main card report $400 but paid the AU card to 0 and let it report. Result was a 14 point drop in EX score. 

Month 4 I replicated month 2 with $400 and $40 reporting and I had a 13 point score increase in EX. I had a couple things change on my report and had gained a few points during the month this time but I know this increase was related to CC reporting because I have CCT and montior my EX score daily and that was the only thing that had changed that day.

As I said it is easier to monitor my EX score because of the daily updates from CCT but from what I could tell it looked like this only affected my EX scores. When I did my monthly pulls there was no noticable difference either up or down in my scores from either TU or EQ during this process. 

I was only monitoring my FICO 08 scores and have no idea how this would affect mortgage scores or any other version. 

[Anonymous]

I hope so. I kinda did a little bit of the opposite....

This billing period, I accidentally forgot that I bought gas with my credit card. When the statement closed yesterday, I realized that I am UTI at 27% instead of the 9% I usually do. ... Overall for all of my cards this billing period is at 14% ..... Hopefully for the next billing period I see a score boost when I bring it back down under 9%.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Conventional wisdom around these boards is that you should let 1 card report a balance of <10% of its limit and all others should report a 0 balance. That is what I had been doing but a few months back I accidently let a 2nd card report a very small balance $40 on a $10k limit card and I got a 14 point score boost on EX. I decided that I would test this out a couple months just to see what happens and thought I would share my results here.

First I have 4 CC reporting plus 1 card that my wife is the main account holder and I am an AU.

Basically what I did was month 1 I let 1 of my cards report a $400 balance out of a $5k limit. 

Month 2 I let the same card report $400 but I let my AU card report $40. Result was my EX score increased by 14 points.

Month 3 I again let my main card report $400 but paid the AU card to 0 and let it report. Result was a 14 point drop in EX score. 

Month 4 I replicated month 2 with $400 and $40 reporting and I had a 13 point score increase in EX. I had a couple things change on my report and had gained a few points during the month this time but I know this increase was related to CC reporting because I have CCT and montior my EX score daily and that was the only thing that had changed that day.

As I said it is easier to monitor my EX score because of the daily updates from CCT but from what I could tell it looked like this only affected my EX scores. When I did my monthly pulls there was no noticable difference either up or down in my scores from either TU or EQ during this process. 

I was only monitoring my FICO 08 scores and have no idea how this would affect mortgage scores or any other version. 

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Try letting the one card report $440 instead of $400 and see if it changes.

[Anonymous]

I have not tried that but I will. 

I did have 1 month that I did not list that I had the 1 report $40 but the one that normally reports $400 only reported $55 and I had about the same score as when it reported 400. I think it was like a point or 2 different but nothing major. I didnt write it down that month so I dont remember exactly.

[Anonymous]

So, to update what I saw this month after a few of my cards updated. 

I had 1 card that reported a balance of $450. That would be $50 more than I normally let report and my score did not really change at all. I had a second card report a $12 balance, this was actually not intended but I had a last minute charge, when the $12 posted on the second card my EX score increased by 15 points. 

This is consistant with my earlier examples of an increase with a 2nd card reporting and it seems to rule out the larger balance being what triggered the increase since I had the balance that I had previously let report on 2 cards report on the 1 card this month and that did not give me the 15 point increase I had previously seen.

Again, I have only been able to track this using my EX score because of the daily EX updates. I do not have anything that daily pulls my other 2 scores so I am not sure how much if any they are affected. 

[RonM21]

Sometimes it takes playing around a bit like you are, and testing what situations work best for your scores. I'd think it also depends on each person's individual profile, how the scores react.