How strict is Citi about Utilization for BTs?

[Anonymous]

I have a Citi DC (3900 Limit) and a Citi AA (5000 Limit) that I plan on transferring balances to within the next couple of weeks. I have a 18 month,0% apr 3% fee for the DC and a 0% APR, 3% fee till Oct 1, 2019 for the Citi AA. The DC has to be done by Monday since that offer expires then.

My plan is to transfer bout 3k to the Double cash and 1.8k to the Citi AA. My reasoning for this is because I’ll get essentially 2 extra months on the DC. However, I’m worried about Citi disliking this since my utilization would be high on the DC at least for 12 months as I have another balance I need to pay off by January.

All balances will be paid off before the 0% ends but just wanted to know if I need to put some of it on my Discover card with 6200 Limit (also 0% for a year ) to cut down on utilization? Thanks!

[K-in-Boston]

Citi is usually fine with high utilization as long as it's not happening on a lot of your cards at once and you're not just making minimum payments.  You'd have 85% utilization on the DC at first with the fee, so expect a dip in scores for a bit, but nothing that should freak any other lenders or Citi out.  Just keep it under 89% or the damage is worse.  With the AA card, you'd be fine.

Have you checked to see if you have a SP CLI available for either card?

[Anonymous]

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@K-in-Boston wrote:

Citi is usually fine with high utilization as long as it's not happening on a lot of your cards at once and you're not just making minimum payments.  You'd have 85% utilization on the DC at first with the fee, so expect a dip in scores for a bit, but nothing that should freak any other lenders or Citi out.  Just keep it under 89% or the damage is worse.  With the AA card, you'd be fine.

Have you checked to see if you have a SP CLI available for either card?

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I recently did a SP CLI on the DC the other day and only got a 1k increase. I wasn’t complaining because I have barely used the card since I got it in January. I will try a SP CLI for the Citi AA though I doubt I’ll get one since I haven’t really used it after hitting Min spend in December.

My plan was to pay 50 on the DC and AA (which would slightly be over the minimum) while putting around 300-400 towards my Fidelity card to pay that off by January. After that’s paid off, I would work on paying the AA off then finally pay the DC off by Nov 2019. I just don’t want them to freak out with the low payments in the beginning.

Also the DC has a 3% fee, so I think the utilization after the fee would be around 79% not 85%.

[K-in-Boston]

(3000+90)/3900=79.23% rounded up to 80% for scoring, correct.  Sorry, I accidentally hit a 6 instead of a 9 on my number pad and divided by 3600 instead of 3900.

[Anonymous]

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@K-in-Boston wrote:

(3000+90)/3900=79.23% rounded up to 80% for scoring, correct.  Sorry, I accidentally hit a 6 instead of a 9 on my number pad and divided by 3600 instead of 3900.

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No worries it happens. So do you think my payments would sit right with Citi in the beginning?

[K-in-Boston]

You should be fine as long as your overall balances are moving downward.  I believe Citi's minimum payments are based on 1.5% of the balance, so $50 should be okay.

[kilroy8]

I thought that I read that util on a card >84.9% had same effect as maxed out. Then if you go over limit, there is another score hit. Something that ABCD(somenumberstring) did, I think.

[HeavenOhio]

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@kilroy8 wrote:

I thought that I read that util on a card >84.9% had same effect as maxed out. Then if you go over limit, there is another score hit. Something that ABCD(somenumberstring) did, I think.

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Over 88.9% is maxed. However, if people are paying down balances, they might be advised to get their utilization a bit lower (e.g. 85%) to prevent the next month's interest charge from maxing the card again.

[Anonymous]

So I just went ahead and BT 3k to my Citi DC and I ended up transferred the remaining 1.8k to my Discover instead of the AA. This allows me to continuing using my AA card for flights  while also enabling me to use my Discover for its 5% categories (just got a 0% apr for 12 months on purchases).

Thank you all!