Which cards should I pay and how much for the maximum score boost?

[Nitrocl]

I would like to ask the board which of the below cards should I pay and how much towards each one with a total of $5,000.00 to get the maximum amount of points in the shortest period of time?

My scores are 636 and 651  currently and I have no lates just one collection from 2-3 years ago.  So my scores are low mainly because of utilization.

Mastercard - bal: 4811  limit-  5000

amex - bal- 14,130  limit-  14,570

sears bal- 5798  limit -  6550

sears bal- 6118  limit-  6550

I have used the score estimators in MyFico, but the ranges are way too broad and for most scenarios your score could stay the same or go up 40 points.

thanks

[LTomBerry]

I would think paying off one of them completely would be better than just chipping away equally at all of them.

HOWEVER,

In your situation you should be more worried about getting out of debt and less worried about getting a high FICO that will qualify you for more debt. Obviously I don't know your complete situation but this is a common topic here. You need to stop charging and pay off cards for the sake of paying them off, not for the sake of score. There are 2 schools of though here:

1. Pay as much as you can on the one with the highest interest and the minimum on all others. Then when that one is paid off apply all that payment to the next highest rate, and so on. This method will mathematically result in paying the least interest.

2. Pay off the smallest balance first, then the next largest balance, etc. This is the "Dave Ramsey" method where the small victory of getting rid of small debts gives you the motivation to keep going.

Forgive me for being harsh, just trying to keep things grounded in reality.

[Creditaddict]

I would take the highest interest rate one unless it's Amex and pay that.... hopefully it would be one of the cards that you could completely wipe out to $0.

I don't know how long you have been carrying this Amex debt but I would bet  the house that if you came in and paid 5k towards your 14k balance you would find your CL down by 5k in a couple days!

[GregB]

We are making certain assumptions here but it certainly looks like you are in imminent danger. Have you had any recent AA? Do you have other accounts that have a $0 balance that you didn't include? I'm assuming you don't.

I agree completely about being very afraid of Amex. How about paying them $500-1000 and then trying to get each of the others below 80% utilization. If there is one card with a promo interest rate you might skip that one in order to pay more on the highest interest rate account. Hopefully, the others will report before Amex does their next soft inquiry and you can avoid Amex chasing your balance down.

[Booner72]

Wouldn't the safest bet be to just pay the minimum on AMEX and work on the others, leaving that one last then?  If that one was tackled first, then the OP would be in worse shape than now because of the decrease in available credit.

[GregB]

I wouldn't ever pay an minimum payment on any CC. But I wouldn't EVER, EVER, EVER pay the minimum for Amex. They seem too sensitive. I was thinking pay them enough to seem like something but not so much that they would chase the balance down. As far as where that sweet spot would be - I just don't know. $1000 per month would take almost two years to pay off with interest which seems like way too long for Amex but more might make them balance chase. I could be hoping for too much by thinking that if they do their periodic review and see that a reasonable payment has just been made it would work out. I'm just guessing here. I have an Amex account that is 35 years old and I don't feel comfortable with them!

My logic was to give them something and then hope his CR looked a bunch better by the time of the next review. No guarantees here, I'm just guessing.

[kjm79]

I think I agree with both Booner and GregB.  It is just a guess and AMEX has been notorious for balance chasing.  Personally, I'd take that $5k and pay off the mastercard (it's the closest to 100% UTIL, even though the others are right there).  That completely eliminates a CC payment and that saved payment can be thrown at the next card.  It also reduces one of the almost 100% maxed accounts...

If you do make a larger payment on the AMEX and they DO balance chase, you're working for nothing (hate to say trying to get out of debt is not working).  As you make the payments, the balance will decrease but so could your limit and when trying to raise your score you want to create MORE availabe credit and not less.  While every card has the chance of balance chasing, AMEX has the higher propensity.  I don't know if I'd take that chance....