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Does too much credit card help your credit?

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RobertEG
Legendary Contributor

Re: Does too much credit card help your credit?

My view on holding a lot of cc's, for what it is worth.

 

There is no such thing, per se, as too much credit in FICO scorng.  It is how you use it.

 

FICO scores revolving %util, per statements of FairIsaac, about equal in the overall %util, and in the util of individual cards.  The number of cards you have means nothing to overall %util, which is a sum of all balances divided by overall CL.

But FICO also scores util on each card.  From what FairIsaac has disclosed, they score the indiviual %util of each card, and also the number of cards showing balances, with more than 1/2 showing balances being negative, and each one below 10% as being maxscore.

With 10 CCs,that is a whole lot of monthly monitoring to ensure each is optimally below 10%, and no more than half report balances.  I dont have the time for this level of monitoring, so keep my accounts to 5.

 

Message 11 of 14
jmbfl
Valued Contributor

Re: Does too much credit card help your credit?


@score_building wrote:
typically, but it also depends what you're applying for.  i was just declined for pen fed for account history too young with youngest account 8 months all other accts. were 15 months to 21 years.

I think I covered this elsewhere - you were declined by PenFed because your youngest account is too new. At eight months this is outside the box for even picky PenFed. No INQ's/no new credit in six months has been good enough for them in the past. There have been some posts here recently regarding a tightening of their policies. I have no firsthand experience with that.

Message 12 of 14
jmbfl
Valued Contributor

Re: Does too much credit card help your credit?


@Anonymous wrote:

@jmbfl wrote:

@Anonymous wrote:

 

So true almost everyone that turned me down recently denied me only because i had to many new accounts. So once you get a few new accounts your better of waiting until those accounts age a good 2 years before you aplly for new credit.

Nah! Six months to a year is sufficient.


jm what if your file is only 6 months old .how long do i need to wait ?


I think we covered your situation in another thread, too. You have three very recently new accounts. They are considered new by the FICO scoring algorithms until they pass the one year point. You really need to cool it and wait until those accounts are at least one year old. Too many new TL's will tank your scores and you are at the tipping point (if it hasn't happened already). Question you need to be asking yourself is, "Do I need new/more credit badly enough to risk lowering my FICO scores?"

Message 13 of 14
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Does too much credit card help your credit?

considering how many cards you have already and your age i would stop with opening any new accounts and just keep these with low balances and use them to make a payment to different bills automatically each month then pay them off right away

 

you should not open too many credit accounts of any kind the way your age and current number of cards indicate your application activity is

 

just lay low and keep these in good standing and do not use them to make impulse purchases

Message 14 of 14
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