credit card utilization distribution important??

stopdrpnro · ‎03-24-2015

Does fico take your total limits and look at utilization as a whole or do they look at them individually? Ie.
Say you have 3 cards with $1000 limits is there any difference in having $333 on each vs having one maxed out and the other with $0 balances?

Anonymous · ‎03-26-2015

short answer, yes...been researching this quite a bit on this forum...will come back with some links. this topic affects my current situation too...

gdale6 · ‎03-26-2015

@stopdrpnro wrote:
Does fico take your total limits and look at utilization as a whole or do they look at them individually? Ie.
Say you have 3 cards with $1000 limits is there any difference in having $333 on each vs having one maxed out and the other with $0 balances?

Utilization takes into account overall percentage individual percentage, number of cards reporting a balance and if they are maxed or not. I would want 333 on 3 over 1 maxed out, maxing out a card (exceeding 89% of its CL) is a pretty good Fico ding.