topic Re: Highest Utilization Boost in Understanding FICO® Scoring

Highest Utilization Boost

Anonymous — Sat, 16 May 2015 13:57:54 GMT

I know that the current recommendation in terms of utilization is to only have one card report from 1-9%, while keeping the others at 0.

From personal experiences, what was the highest score boost you received while minimizing your utilization? Please include your before and after utilization percentage and score change.

Re: Highest Utilization Boost

Anonymous — Thu, 21 May 2015 14:29:45 GMT

Everyone is going to have different results, depending on the remainder of their credit factors (AAoA, lates reporting, etc.)

Largest jump I have personally seen was from someone going from 52% to 1%, and the jump was roughly 75 points. Utilization is by far the best way to bump your score in a quick way. If your account is littered with major derogs, then your score may be held down much further and utilization won't help as much.

Re: Highest Utilization Boost

Anonymous — Thu, 21 May 2015 16:54:05 GMT

I did this back at the end of 2014 beginning of 2015 to prepare for some loan refinances. My reported Util was around 90% (depending on what week and who had reported) and my scores were right around 680-690. Once I dropped my Util to 1% and only on one line my scores jumped to 780 + by February, started monitoring reported Util in December.

Added new CL's, got a few CLI's so now my Util is around 10% with full balances reporting each month and my score stays in the 750 range (after adding 9 accounts this year). Still PIF on anything that has interest, just have much better CL's so I can show balances and not get hit as hard.