When will I see results for new CC?

[EaglesFan2006]

Previously i was declined at credit and they always pointed to no revolving credit.  Now I opened up two new CC in june, both low limit (500 and 300)...assuming I pay these off timely, when can i expect to see my credit score rise?

[RobertEG]

Initially, I doubt that you will see much, if any  increase.

Each new card had a new inq associated with it, and when opened, reduced your avg age of accounts.  These short term impacts will be offset with your addition now of revolving credit to your credit mix, and was definately a necessary step for long term building

Timely payments are rewarded by increase in credit history.  FICO score increases for lenght of credit history are very slow..... years. not months.

As for your use of the new cards, their impact could be postive or negatve in the short term, so how you use them is important in your monthly scoring.

FICO does not care about the CL on the cards, only their % util.  It is very easy to run up high % utils on a low limit CC  So make sure you keep their reported balances low, preferbly under 10% of their CL.

It may take a year to show significant FICO improvement, but you have taken the right step.

[EaglesFan2006]

Thanks Robert, makes sense.  I didn't expect any massive increase.  actually you helped answer my question...i was hoping the inquiry and new credit dings would be cancelled out by the presense of revolving credit.  I think my scores are low 600's now depending, i just want to get to 620 as my starting point...i thinki i'm there with EQ but not the others.  not sure though.  I also have a car loan coming at 6 months now which should help

I plan to keep util low.  Is that fresh every month?  ie if you have a util of 70% one month and than you pay it all off to have 0 the next month, does FICO only report that util or does it track util history?

[RobertEG]

You are correct.  % utill has absolutely no historic memory in FICO scoring.  FICO only looks at your % util at the time of scoring.

Last month's % util is dead history to FICO.

But that does not mean that having old, high balances and utilizations is meaningless.  They are still stored in your credit file, and certainly by your creditor, and may later have some importance to them in manual reviews of your credit history, such as for granting credit limit increases, improved interest rates, or balance transfer requests.  I thus would not advise running up your util one month, relying on its disappearance from FICO scoring the next month.  It is not all just about FICO scoring.