@Anonymous wrote:
@HeavenOhio wrote:
You don't need to do AZEO every month unless you have an important application coming up. However, it might be useful to try it just to see how high your score will get. After that, try leaving balances on two cards to see how much it might matter. Another month, you could try a slightly larger balance. Don't change up too much at once. There'll be too many variables involved and the effects of your experimenting will be obscured.
This is solid advice but one thing to be aware of is that you never know when your current lenders pull SP on your report so maintaining your best FICO score has one possible benefit: auto-CLIs. It's also important to know that just because FICO is a snapshot of your credit today you can't ignore that lenders may be keeping track of SP history in order to extend you credit in the form of requested CLIs and auto CLIs. If they see you consistently keep a high score over time, you may warrant auto-CLIs.
You don't want to experiment with anything that's a known score-killer. 
For instance, we already know that a maxed out card is bad; there's no reason to find out what doing that will do to your score. Plus, there's the possibility that a maxed out card will spook lenders.
For me (but not necessarily for others), I've learned that two cards reporting dings my Equifax score by five points. That's fine. My next test was to increase my balances fairly significantly. No ding for that. I increased them some more and got a six-point ding on TransUnion and two-point dings on the other two bureaus. But my scores are still fine. Next, I'll reduce the balance on the next card to report other than zero to see if the points come back. The bottom line is that none of these score shifts are going to hurt me.
I became a little concerned about AZEO on a regular basis after Capital One adverse action on a few members for "balances on Capital One cards too low" and "balances on non-Capital One cards too low." That bit of news makes me feel more comfortable with a second card reporting a balance. However, if one has less than five cards, I'd think that one card with a balance would be fine. I'll do AZEO again just to see where my score tops out at a given time. But I'm not going to aim for it all the time.
@Anonymous wrote:
i didn't mean to say I would carry a balance. I use my two points cards almost daily for things like gas, groceries, bills, etc. As soon as the charges hit my chase app I just pay them off immediately. I will make sure I leave a few hundred on one so I will show AZEO. Once the statement is due I will pay it down to zero so I don't pay interest. I really appreciate all of the feedback.
I am applying for a personal loan through my credit union for some home improvements and they use TU 8. The rate for 720 and above is 4.99%. 719 and below is 11.99%. My TU score dropped from 733 to 729 to 717 in the last 2 weeks due to in large part from what I can tell is the zero balances. Once I get the loan I can go back to paying off my cards immediately.
Cool. Sometimes people think they need to carry a balance and pay interest. So the advice typically comes up in most threads like this. And it tends to be repeated because it's so important.