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Hello All,
Just discovered this forum and have been reading it like crazy. I decided to pay all my credit card balances off yesterday to help raise my score. Cap 1, Sony card, Discover, and household bank card. Score is around 720. I figured paying them all of would be very good, but the more I read it may actually be bad as it would report 0% utilization? I was around 40% utilization with those 4. Now I have a Amex gold I use for everything, I have a 1500 balance right now that would be paid in full Next billing, Jan 3rd. Does this count towards my utilization?? Would it show a 0% even with my current Amex balance? I hear the gold amex isn't reported as a balance? Am I in OK shape? I basically want to have the biggest bump possible, so Im wondering if I should buy something to have a small balance on 1 or two of the credit cards? Sorry for all the questions but advise would be much appreciated.
@Anonymous wrote:Hello All,
Just discovered this forum and have been reading it like crazy. I decided to pay all my credit card balances off yesterday to help raise my score. Cap 1, Sony card, Discover, and household bank card. Score is around 720. I figured paying them all of would be very good, but the more I read it may actually be bad as it would report 0% utilization? I was around 40% utilization with those 4. Now I have a Amex gold I use for everything, I have a 1500 balance right now that would be paid in full Next billing, Jan 3rd. Does this count towards my utilization?? Would it show a 0% even with my current Amex balance? I hear the gold amex isn't reported as a balance? Am I in OK shape? I basically want to have the biggest bump possible, so Im wondering if I should buy something to have a small balance on 1 or two of the credit cards? Sorry for all the questions but advise would be much appreciated.
Hi and welcome to the forum.
I am sure others may be able to explain this much better.
EQ will not include Amex Gold as it is not considered revolving. TU on the other hand it depends on what model is used for scoring. If model TU04 is used it will not be included as it is not considered revolving. If model TU98 (MYFICO uses TU98) is used it will consider highest balance and include in UTIL.
IMO I would pay off the Amex and make a small purchase with CC to report a balance of <9% or lower. IME I have a better score if I keep it between 1%-3% and YMMV.
Hopefully some one will chime in and explain it better.
Well my amex is on auto pay the full balance at the 3rd. So on the 3rd it will have a 0 balance. Should I pay it off now, and charge like $10 on 1 card to have a 1% utilization? I want to have the largest score jump possible with the balances I paid off, I don't want it to look bad if a 0% utilization is frowned on.
@Anonymous wrote:Well my amex is on auto pay the full balance at the 3rd. So on the 3rd it will have a 0 balance. Should I pay it off now, and charge like $10 on 1 card to have a 1% utilization? I want to have the largest score jump possible with the balances I paid off, I don't want it to look bad if a 0% utilization is frowned on.
IMO this is exactly what I do and works best for me.
Just want to add that a very few CC's report to the CRA's end of month instead of the statement date. You can search the forum for which ones, the ones that come to mind right off hand are HSBC, and Orchard but I think there are a few others. Those cards you want to pay off before month end and not before statement cuts.
Also wanted to add that I pay my Amex off as soon as it shows I owe something. It still totals up everything that was spent through the statement period as total amount used which still gives you the high limit used for TU98 scoring with a 0 balance.
@JM-AM wrote:Just want to add that a very few CC's report to the CRA's end of month instead of the statement date. You can search the forum for which ones, the ones that come to mind right off hand are HSBC, and Orchard but I think there are a few others. Those cards you want to pay off before month end and not before statement cuts.
Also wanted to add that I pay my Amex off as soon as it shows I owe something. It still totals up everything that was spent through the statement period as total amount used which still gives you the high limit used for TU98 scoring with a 0 balance.
+1 HSBC and Orchard bank cards (as opposed to HSBC Best Buy store card, which reports the statement balance) and US Bank cards (all of them) report your balance as of the last business day of the month.
US Bank sends in the info right away, but HSBC/ Orchard generally dilly-dally around a week or two before submitting the info. But it's still the balance as of the last day of the month, rather than of the day that they finally send it in.
Thanks for the info!