Is heavy usage based on swipes, purchase amount or both?

[Anonymous]

I know this is probably common knowledge but I was just wondering what is considered heavy usage?

For example swipe base would be the fact that I usually will make small purchases while I'm working to buy something. Usually something to drink so like 3-4 under 2$ purchases 6 days a week. Is that heavy usage because I have to swipe the card a bunch regardless of the small amounts?

Or is it more like when I pay my cell phone, cable or car insurance with my cards monthly which are all over 100$.

Basically is heavy usage using the card a ton even for small purchases or using a higher percentage of the available credit?

I assumed that using a high percentage of the available credit would be heavy usage. However I was recently looking at the number of transactions I make daily and it made me wonder. So I thought I'd just ask the awesome people here!

THANKS IN ADVANCE! YOU ALL ROCK 😃

[Anonymous]

Heavy usage means high utilization -- generally considered letting a statement report with anywhere from 50% up to 100% of your credit limit.

[HeavenOhio]

I'd define heavy usage in dollars. To use an example, when you request a Capital One CLI, they ask you about your monthly spending on the card. By paying more than once a month, you can use a card a lot while keeping utilization reasonable.

[Anonymous]

Ok AWESOME! Thanks for the clarification 😃

I do PIF on most cards. Just keep balances on the ones I used 0% financing for. Just didn't know if using a card for a bunch of tiny purchases registered as heavy usage or not. Thanks for the explainations!!

[Anonymous]

Creditors LIKE seeing you use their cards a lot, even for small purchases, because they're making money on each transaction (through merchant processing fees).  What they don't like is folks paying late, or not paying at all, or running really high reported utilization on a lot of cards over a long period of time, or opening way too many new accounts in a short period of time.

So go ahead and use your credit, just make sure to pay down high utilization BEFORE the statement posts to the credit reporting agencies.

[Anonymous]

AHHHH!! Okay Awesome!!! Yeah I always PIF for the cards I use. Currently I'm using my Cap1 QS and AMEX BCE for daily expenses. I'm attempting to persuade future CLI by doing so.

I'm glad to hear that by using them a lot it'll be considered good usage 😃

[Anonymous]

I ran about $50K through my $24k NFCU CC, and the 3rd statement has not cut yet.  Swipes from less than $1 to almost $10K. No issues I would think as long as your profile looks good under the AR you are good, and you are not doing something like slow pay, or MS you are all good.

[Anonymous]

I would say dollars are probably 10x more important than number of swipes, but assuming equal dollars I believe that more swipes are better.

As a simple example, on a $1000 monthly spend, IMO ten different $100 transactions are better than a single $1000 transaction.  A hundred $10 transactions would be better than ten $100 transactions, etc.  As stated earlier, the creditor makes more in fees from more swipes... so they like more swipes, but not more than more dollars.  Another sort of side benefit of more swipes is that it gives the creditor the impression that you value their card more.  The more it may appear that it's your daily driver, the more they may feel you value the card and as a result they may grant you things like auto-CLIs. 

I always use the self-checkout at stores... grocery store, Home Depot, wholesale club, etc.  Every time I use a self-checkout, which is several times a week, I always use multiple cards.  If I have a $50 transaction, for example, I'll run 2 cards for a few bucks each and run the remaining $45 or whatever on the main card that I want that spend to go toward.  This way I'm showing 3 cards usage.  This literally only takes me maybe 15-20 seconds longer when checking out, but I can show usage on cards more like 3X a week when I would normally only use them once perhaps bi-weekly.

[Anonymous]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

I would say dollars are probably 10x more important than number of swipes, but assuming equal dollars I believe that more swipes are better.

As a simple example, on a $1000 monthly spend, IMO ten different $100 transactions are better than a single $1000 transaction.  A hundred $10 transactions would be better than ten $100 transactions, etc.  As stated earlier, the creditor makes more in fees from more swipes... so they like more swipes, but not more than more dollars.  Another sort of side benefit of more swipes is that it gives the creditor the impression that you value their card more.  The more it may appear that it's your daily driver, the more they may feel you value the card and as a result they may grant you things like auto-CLIs. 

I always use the self-checkout at stores... grocery store, Home Depot, wholesale club, etc.  Every time I use a self-checkout, which is several times a week, I always use multiple cards.  If I have a $50 transaction, for example, I'll run 2 cards for a few bucks each and run the remaining $45 or whatever on the main card that I want that spend to go toward.  This way I'm showing 3 cards usage.  This literally only takes me maybe 15-20 seconds longer when checking out, but I can show usage on cards more like 3X a week when I would normally only use them once perhaps bi-weekly.

---

Lol I thought I was the only person who did this. Depending on how big of a charge it is I usually split the payment . If it's back like $500 bucks, I'll put $400 on my main card and might put the remaining $100 on another card just for usage and swipe. 

[Anonymous]

Absolutely.  When making the decision of which card to use for the majority of the spend, typically I go with whichever card gives me back the most rewards at that location, or whichever card I'm trying to hit a spend bonus for.  My additional swipes are usually just a few dollars each, as the dollars really aren't important to the other cards and just the swipes/activity.  Putting additional dollars on those other cards only cuts down on my rewards and/or dollars toward hitting a signup bonus spend.