Balances - 9% or 30% of CL?

[Anonymous]

From reading here, it seems that carrying balances of 9% of CL is a "magic" number that positively impacts score.

I was reading an article in Consumer Reports that suggests for higher borrowers a balance of less than 30% of CL also represents some type of magic threshold, too.

Anyone know if paying down to a 30% threshold will result in an increase in score?   

[Anonymous]

Paying to below 30% will definately help you.  However, the reports from this site suggest that anything from 1-9% helps your score even more.  The lower the better, of course.

[RobertEG]

Cuddlles, no one, including the venerable Consumer Reports, can offer you any magical thresholds for the impact of % util on your credit score.

The lower the % util, clearly the better.

But % util of overall CL is not the entire picture.  Fair Isaac has stated that they score overall % util and the sum of individual card utilization at approx the same level.

So, for example, if you have a low CL card at 90% util, and a high CL card at 10% util, for example, your ovrerall % util may be just slightly above 10%.  But the 90% util card will hurt a lot.

Also, in the individual account util calculation, FICO looks at the % of cards reporting balances each month.  Five cards, each reproting balances, at any level, is hurting. If only one of those five is reporting a balance, that is much better for your scoring.

There is no doubt that if you have overall % util under 10%, with each card not reproting more than 10% util, and morre than half of your cards are reporting 0 balance, you are in FICO nirvanna.

But the recent credit crunch has thrown other considerations into the mix.  Some CCCs have recently begun to reduce CLs on cards that show low utilization, which could impact your score.

It is not simple, and general guidelines dont impress me much.