topic Re: AZEO Balances in Understanding FICO® Scoring

AZEO Balances

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Mar 2021 21:11:37 GMT

Good Afternoon,

I've kept a $0 balance reporting on my credit cards for the past few years. Working on getting some much needed points. Question is, does it matter what card I keep a balance for utilization on for the Azeo Method? Any suggestions?

Here's what cards I have:

ExxonMobil Gas Card

Opened May 2011

CL $200

Balance-$0

Discover It Secured-(Graduated 11/2020)

Opened May 2016

CL $4,200

Bal $1.75

AMEX Delta Gold

Opened 3/2021

CL $1000

Bal $0

I did close 2 CapOne cards last week. Both $500 limits, no lates, etc. Opened 07/2018. Wanted to trim the fat per say, only reason I closed them, and since I recently received the AMEX Delta.

Any AZEO tips will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Re: AZEO Balances

Ficoproblems247 — Sat, 13 Mar 2021 22:42:41 GMT

Here is what is normally recommended to NOT use:

Store cards

Credit union cards

Cards issued by Chase

Cards issued by Synchrony

Store cards and CU cards are not recommended due to the unpredictable nature of them sometimes not counting and causing the all zero penalty, sometimes they can still work, however. Chase is not recommended because every time they pay in full they will report mid-cycle at a $0 balance so that can definitely throw a wrench in AZEO very quickly. SYNB can off cycle report just because they feel like it that day and cause your reported balance to jump around with whatever current charges you have on that TL. You will want to use a regular revolving card issued by a major national bank for best results.

If it were me with your current card lineup, my vote is the AMEX. I always use my BPC when I go AZEO and it works like a champ.

Re: AZEO Balances

SouthJamaica — Sat, 13 Mar 2021 23:43:22 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Good Afternoon,
I've kept a $0 balance reporting on my credit cards for the past few years. Working on getting some much needed points. Question is, does it matter what card I keep a balance for utilization on for the Azeo Method? Any suggestions?

Here's what cards I have:

ExxonMobil Gas Card
Opened May 2011
CL $200
Balance-$0

Discover It Secured-(Graduated 11/2020)
Opened May 2016
CL $4,200
Bal $1.75

AMEX Delta Gold
Opened 3/2021
CL $1000
Bal $0

I did close 2 CapOne cards last week. Both $500 limits, no lates, etc. Opened 07/2018. Wanted to trim the fat per say, only reason I closed them, and since I recently received the AMEX Delta.

Any AZEO tips will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

You don't need to keep a balance, just need to let it report before you pay it off.

Either the Amex or the Discover IT will suffice.

Re: AZEO Balances

Ficoproblems247 — Sun, 14 Mar 2021 00:47:49 GMT

Hey @SouthJamaica , I didn't notice that OP had stated that their Disco had graduated to unsecured until after I reread the original post, which brings me to a question: Does using a secured card work just as well when practicing AZEO? I can't remember reading about that before and wasn't sure of the correct answer. Figured you would know that one.

Re: AZEO Balances

SouthJamaica — Sun, 14 Mar 2021 01:49:35 GMT

@Ficoproblems247 wrote:
Hey @SouthJamaica , I didn't notice that OP had stated that their Disco had graduated to unsecured until after I reread the original post, which brings me to a question: Does using a secured card work just as well when practicing AZEO? I can't remember reading about that before and wasn't sure of the correct answer. Figured you would know that one.

A secured card is no different than an unsecured card in any FICO algorithm.

Re: AZEO Balances

Anonymous — Sun, 14 Mar 2021 02:40:45 GMT

Thank you all for your responses! Greatly appreciated!

Re: AZEO Balances

Anonymous — Sun, 14 Mar 2021 04:39:36 GMT

I would stay away from the gas card and use one of the other two for AZEO purposes.

Re: AZEO Balances

Anonymous — Tue, 16 Mar 2021 06:38:41 GMT

@Anonymous it is a shame you closed the two capital one cards, as they would've allowed you to reach lower thresholds for AWB on various algorithms.

Plus, number of bankcards is a scoring metric on 8/9. I don't know for sure if that metric includes closed cards or not, tho.

Then again, number of AWV includes closed accounts on EX2, but that's not believed to hold for the others; but,

more testing is required to be conclusive, but just throwing that out there for academic knowledge's sake.