For those of you that have multiple Credit Card Limits over 10,000...

[frugal47374]

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@jamesdwi wrote:

Using 85% of a limit is a bad thing especially if its a high limit card, and should be avoided at all costs. 

If lenders give you high limits they expect you to use it responsibly, Maxing out a high limit card, and missing a payment or even making the minimum payment only for more than a couple months is a good way to see your high limits go away. 

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Let me offer a conflicting data point, understanding that everyone is in a different credit situation.

I will max out any credit card that lets me have free money (0%) and will pay the minimum I am required to (but never a missed or even late payment.)

I have never had a limit decreased for that reason.  The only decreases I have had is for lack of use.

At the moment I have 0% credit cards at 100%, 99%, 94%, 94% and 70%.  Overall utilization is 12%.

Of course my FICO score isn't great, but that is a tool, not a goal.

[Aim_High]

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@jamesdwi wrote:

Since lenders base much of their decesions on FICO scores, I use the same metrics to calculate spend on my various cards, if your UTL is under 10% your fico score isn't penalized. So I consider it fine to use between 1-9% of my limits and be fine, most lenders are happy about this. On occausion I use 30% of one or two cards, mostly on BT deals. Using 85% of a limit is a bad thing especially if its a high limit card, and should be avoided at all costs. The closest I ever came to maxing out a credit card was a $11,000 charge on a card with a $20,000 limit. Paid it off as quick as possible.  

If lenders give you high limits they expect you to use it responsibly, Maxing out a high limit card, and missing a payment or even making the minimum payment only for more than a couple months is a good way to see your high limits go away. 

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Once again, that depends.  

I got a new Navy Federal Platinum card in November.  It came with a $10K limit but I wanted it to grow much higher.  This was my first card with Navy and I was a new customer, so I knew I needed to build internal payment history so they would give me a higher limit.  However, the card came with no rewards for using it for purchases.  Bummer. 

BUT ... it came with a $0 BT Fee and 0% APR BT offer for 12 months.  I didn't really need to BT anything.  I pay all my cards in full.  But I purposefully transferred over $9800 (98% utilization) from other cards in the first 30 days that would have just come out of my bank account.  It didn't cost me a nickel.  Then I paid it off over three months to show them I could be repsonsible in repaying a large balance. 

Sure it (temporarily) tanked my scores, but they came right back up.  And the balance transfer served its' purpose.  After four months when my scores rebounded, I asked Navy for a CLI and got $8K, which seems to be the maximum they typically hand out in most cases.  Mission accomplished.    See the graph for the impact on my scores ... and the FULL rebound.  (They recovered the other 2 points the following month on Navy's FICO update.)  The second graph shows my relative debt load, month-by-month.   Now, I'm not suggesting this technique for everyone, and your mileage may vary.  But it worked for me.

 

See below for balances that were

*REPORTING* to Credit Bureaus:

(I PIF many times before statement cut)