Store Cards vs. Major Credit Cards?

[nearlythere]

Revolving credit: How are store cards (Macy's, Sears, Home Depot) treated vs. Major credit cards (B of A, CITI) in the FICO score?  The same?  Different?

[llecs]

The util is scored the same provided it reports a CL. In terms of mix, it's my understanding that revolving are weighed slightly more than store cards, though it's quite small. From personal experience, I came off a credit hiatus of 7 years and went cash only after burning a few bridges back in my college days. So I started with no CC. The first two I added reported with a balance of $0 and saw some nice gains. These were revolving. The 3rd was a store card. The gain from the third surpassed the gain from the second despite all 3 reporting $0. I figured adding a store helped with the mix. Conversely, adding a revolving to an all-store card portfolio would likely result in a net gain sooner.

[nearlythere]

Thanks very much for your reply.    I really appreciate your time sharing this info with me.

[Anonymous]

DH and I haven't been as lucky with store cards as llecs has.

We both opened our first revolving account (a bank card for each of us) and saw some significant point increases (20-30 point range).

When DH added his first store card, he saw minimal point change (maybe zero) and when I opened my first store card, I lost a point or two.

So I thought the following was interesting:

DH does not currently have any store cards open.

Macy's recently reported him as an AU on my Macy's store card.  He's been an AU for a few years, but they haven't reported him.

The card has a zero reported balance always (and was reporting no CL), and his AAofA stayed basically the same (4.4 down to 4.1 years - since FICO rounds AAofA down it stayed right at 4).

The day the card reported, DH lost 10 FICO points on EQ.  

I removed him as AU on Macy's, and the day it was removed from his account, he gained 10 or 11 FICO points on EQ.

No other changes either day.

Remember that FICO has a reason code for a national or bank revolving card, and it has a code for having a revolving account, but it does not have a code for store (or merchant) cards.

So, perhaps what I think I've seen is that merchant cards show different patterns for different folks, but opening your first bank/national revolving account appears to consistently gain FICO points.  If your first revolver is a bank card, you'll feel the FICO joy when you open it!