What is the best Strategy and how much should I expect my score to go up?

[Anonymous]

It was only 7 months ago that I had a 712  FICO score even though I had $70k in credit card debt and $65K in student loans.  I never missed any payments even though I was maxxed out.  By May of 2010, my payments and interest rates had gone up and I was having trouble.  I worked with Citibank (my largest creditor at $40k)  to close my account and give me a ZERO percent interest rate for 1 year in order to lower my payments and allow me to pay on my other accounts more aggressively.  However, I didn't consolidate or do any sort of long term debt solution as I didn't want to completely destroy my credit.

This strategy has been working.  However, it dropped my credit to 630.  It looks like I will have the opportunity to pay off about $30K in credit card debt in 1 payment before the end of the year.  I am wondering if I should apply that towards Citibank or pay off my other cards which are still active and open.   What would you do?  I need my score to go up the most it can.  Please help.

[mauve]

I suspect that your agreement lowered your available revolving credit, which skyrocketed your utilization.  I'd pay down / off the revolving credit (not the student loans) with priority put on the highest interest rates.  You should see a good jump for each 10% of utilization you go down.