This month and latter part of August has been a very interesting and productive! In mid-August, I paid off all of my balances on my outstanding credit cards (around $5500) on a 1st Command VISA, HSBC Platinum MC,Home Depot/Citi and Lowes/GEMB. Had a balance of $102 on Best Buy/Chase, which I paid off and then charged $700 for a laptop. My scores at the end of August/first of September were 702/TU 703/EQ and 713/EX (from my credit union-true FICO).
Once everything started reporting as being paid, my scores started going up gradually, then increased substantially. My TU is now (as of 09/10/11) 777, EQ (same date) is 746, and EX is 730 (FICO from a credit grantor).
While paying the accounts off, I requested a CLI from 1st Command, went from $2500 to $7500 and moved from basic to platinum VISA. Requested a CLI from Lowes, went from $3000 to $6000. Requested CLI from Home Depot, went from $5000 to $8300.
Also have applied for new credit and got:
AMEX Clear $3000 approval, pulled EX
AMEX Zync approval, pulled EX
Discover More $3600 approval, pulled EQ
Citi Diamond Preferred MC, $6800 approval pulled EX
BofA BankAmericard Power Rewards VISA, $5000 approval, pulled EX
The only declines I have are from Chase, who also pulled EX! Applied for Chase Slate and Chase Sapphire, was turned down for both due to the number of inquiries...all those prior EX pulls. Can't believe both my good and bad luck! Good luck in that I got the approvals that I got, bad luck for the number of companies that pulled EX...why couldn't one of them pull TU?!?!
I checked my scores from 3 years ago and I was in the upper 500s-low 600s. The gains have been slow but steady, and getting UTI down was the single biggest factor to improving my scores dramatically. So, any advice I would offer would be to GET THAT UTILIZATION DOWN! Keep it below 10% and you'll be surprised at what you can accomplish!
Starting Score (08/11/11): TU08: 643