Credit card utilization

[iandesmama]

I have a secured credit card with a credit line of $200. I've been keeping it below 29% consistently and my score is increasing every time I check.

Question: does it report to the bureaus each time I make a purchase/increase the utilization? Or does it just report the utilization one day per month? I called Cap1 and they said they report to the bureaus 2-3 days after the billing cycle, so as long as I pay the balance/keep the utilization low on that date, will it still effect my credit negatively if I spend more than that throughout the month?

[Anonymous]

Your utilization is the amount shown on your report which the credit card company sends to the CRA once each month usually right after you statement closes.  Just pay your account down a couple of days before your statement closes to show what ever percentage of utilization you want to have reported.

[RobertEG]

Creditors also have a code under which they can separatley report the high balance, but it is not always reported, and to my knowledge, not used by FICO in its scoring.

It might, however, be considered in a manual review if a potential creditor wishes to do so.

Unless a potential creditor did multiple monthly pulls, they would not see a repeated pattern of very high usage, and thus I doubt they give it much, if any, weight.