topic Re: Utilization Question in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Utilization Question

Credit-hoarder — Thu, 31 Oct 2013 22:11:19 GMT

My USAA CC has starting reporting on EQ either today or yesterday. Subsequently my score went from 697 to 691 via myFico Scorewatch. But I'm not worried about that b/c my total credit reporting should also have gone from $7500 to $18500--bringing my UTIL from around 6% to around 2% (approx $375 in balances reporting currently) and myFico score should rebound fairly quick if I can keep my total reporting balance right around $400. Is this a correct assumption to make based on this scenario?.

Re: Utilization Question

Necromancer — Thu, 31 Oct 2013 22:02:48 GMT

I believe your assumption is correct, but most likely the fico drop was due to a decrease in your AAoA, which will increase as your new TL ages.

Re: Utilization Question

coldnmn — Thu, 31 Oct 2013 22:05:42 GMT

Re: Utilization Question

Anonymous — Thu, 31 Oct 2013 22:07:19 GMT

I believe that a given utilization puts you in a particular bucket, and if utilization goes down a bit, but you're still in that bucket, then it won't help you.

I presume this is true for lots of aspects of FICO scoring. For example, my AAoA is around 6.1 years, and I doubt that getting it up to 6.5 years will do anything for me.

Re: Utilization Question

too-much-time — Thu, 31 Oct 2013 22:24:03 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I believe that a given utilization puts you in a particular bucket, and if utilization goes down a bit, but you're still in that bucket, then it won't help you.

I don't know, so I'm quoting. "Util doesn't determine buckets. If it did, we would be getting poured in and out of buckets every time another CC updates." "We do know that there are 2 negative and 8 positive buckets."

Re: Utilization Question

Anonymous — Mon, 04 Nov 2013 15:54:50 GMT

You are correct. There is no bucket for utilization.