Been nagging at me for a bit as we've bandied about different numbers for what consistitutes a maxxed out credit card: I "know" the penalty exists as I uniquely dropped 14 points (660 -> 646) twice during testing it when I was Amex CLI chasing while flatlined on Beacon 5, but I was absurdly close to the limit each time (99+%).
I recently semi-impulse bought some stuff and have two datapoints neither of which triggered a change in score based on SW monitoring (number of balances didn't change and aggregate utilization is 11% and I haven't taken a ding at 27% on Beacon 5 at least and didn't see one here either).
| Balance | Limit | Util % |
| 1857 | 4400 | 42.20% |
| 2922 | 4400 | 66.41% |
Unfortunately (from a testing perspective) I wrote a check for it all, and somewhat disappointingly I whacked my Cap 1 card which would've been trivial to test this on with it's $400 limit, but now I'm curious as to what the rough percentage actually is. Think after next Freedom statement just going to run everything through it for a month and I can find some long put off stuff to kick it over some percentage boundary, but am wondering if anyone else has datapoints who'd be willing to share and maybe we can determine what it precisely is.
@axxy wrote:My Score Watch score was 825, and I wrote a credit card convenience check for 12500 of a 13000 limit, and that triggered a Score Watch alert today, with my score going down to 800 even. However, it seems likely to me that most of those 25 points would be from having a $12500 debt, period, regardless of what limit the card had. Before that, I had practically no debt, and total available credit of around $140,000. I was paying in full monthly, and paying most cards before their statements to keep the reported balances low.
There doesn't seem to be any easy way to tell, when you max out a card, how much of the score drop is from being maxed on that card, and how much is from adding that much to your overall debt.
By the way, one big advantage of having high score such as 825, is that when you get credit card convenience checks in the mail, you get good terms such as 18 months 0% with a fee of 1%. In the past when my scores were much lower, I would get 6 months 0% with a fee of 4%. That can make a difference of hundreds of dollars in the fee alone. 1% of $12,500 is $125.
In my experience <10% aggregate utilization is trivial, but that's with my mixed file. I tested with 13% and 27% during my Amex CLI chasing and I moved identically 14 points each time (and then back again when I paid it) and as such I'm somewhat thinking if there is a static breakpoint, it's in the 30-33% range for revolving utilization, or possibly (and this is assuming that Beacon 5 and 9 are consistent in this, which they may not be) at 12% since when I run the numbers, I think I've mostly excluded 1-11% as being different and 13-27% as the same too for my file anyway.
I actually like your data point tremendously based on that, 12500/13000 = 96.15%, and while I'm fairly confident that anything north of 90% is maxxed, it's nice to get a smaller datapoint than what I'd had for testing. I will state that if I moved 14 points from a 660 -> 646, moving 25 points at your credit strata is more than reasonable for expected results of this testing.
Yeah, I wish I had that sort of convenience check capability but the best I have is 3% and I'm struggling with justifying $60 to test this on my USAA card when I can do it the slow way... if it were at the yuppie food stamp level that 1% would be on that 2K CL, I'd absolutely take it.
It's funny how credit works.
I've been testing for many months the effects of a $0 balance vs a sub $100 balance reporting.
I had 2 of 9 cards reporting $0 and my score was 676. 3 of 9 went to 680. 4 of 9 went to 683... 5 of 9 went to 687... and on August 1st card 6 of 9 reported $0 and I gained 7 points to 694.
All of these cards were reporting small sub $100 balances and the drop to $0 changed my score each time.
I charged $2500 on a card last month and saw no change in my score... but my CapOne card goes from $19 to $0 and I gain 7 points.
To me it makes no sense, but I didn't design FICO.
FICO 8 appears to be more sensitive / have more resolution on the number of cards with balances. I was tracking it for a while and should go update my post with some recent changes (though I got an unfortunately inquiry from VZW on my Equifax even though I prepaid, which skewed it all, oh well, 6 points I'll get back in a year: I'm starting to hate TPC).
That said, I did find at least with my own report that while I didn't gain points for every single balance I paid to zero, there were breakpoints beneath the usual "half cards reporting balances" and I even got a boost going from 2 / 9 reporting a balance to 1 / 9 reporting a balance so the conventional wisdom has come true at least under FICO 8 in my case.
There's the other side which I'm sort of more interested in now which is how much of an individual tradeline counts as maxxed out, as I'm moderately confident there's a flattish percentage rate somewhere between 66-96%. My Freedom statement closes in a week, will go run that up next month and see if I can hit a 70%+ number which should be doable and see if I get dinged.
At some point if I have financial resources again, would like to test aggregate utilization too, but I suspect that one's in the 30-33% range and that seems pretty well accepted, but my limits are non-trivial for my usual expeditures now, which makes it problematic. OH well, figure buying a house eventually I'll have plenty of chances to test that out with requisite furniture purchases!
@Revelate wrote:FICO 8 appears to be more sensitive / have more resolution on the number of cards with balances. I was tracking it for a while and should go update my post with some recent changes (though I got an unfortunately inquiry from VZW on my Equifax even though I prepaid, which skewed it all, oh well, 6 points I'll get back in a year: I'm starting to hate TPC).
That said, I did find at least with my own report that while I didn't gain points for every single balance I paid to zero, there were breakpoints beneath the usual "half cards reporting balances" and I even got a boost going from 2 / 9 reporting a balance to 1 / 9 reporting a balance so the conventional wisdom has come true at least under FICO 8 in my case.
There's the other side which I'm sort of more interested in now which is how much of an individual tradeline counts as maxxed out, as I'm moderately confident there's a flattish percentage rate somewhere between 66-96%. My Freedom statement closes in a week, will go run that up next month and see if I can hit a 70%+ number which should be doable and see if I get dinged.
At some point if I have financial resources again, would like to test aggregate utilization too, but I suspect that one's in the 30-33% range and that seems pretty well accepted, but my limits are non-trivial for my usual expeditures now, which makes it problematic. OH well, figure buying a house eventually I'll have plenty of chances to test that out with requisite furniture purchases!
I'm waiting on card 7 of 9 to report the $0 balance in the coming days... As well as a card to report increased util. All my CC debt is on 2 cards.... Both 80% maxed for the next CRA report.
Will post any changes.
@TRC_WA wrote:I'm waiting on card 7 of 9 to report the $0 balance in the coming days... As well as a card to report increased util. All my CC debt is on 2 cards.... Both 80% maxed for the next CRA report.
Will post any changes.
Appreciate that! I actually had some unexpected airline tickets that came up so dropped it on the Freedom so am trying to goose it this month too.
at 76% now with another 5% in pending charges with statement closing 8/9: I might hit the 80% mark too for additional data points, but at least will get a 75% mark worst case.