Is it possible to use 50% of available util on a card or cards with high CL without triggering AA?

[galahad15]

Just curious:  is it possible to use up to 50% of the available util on a card or cards with a high CL, without triggering AA?

As a hypothetical example:  if you have a card that has a CL of say $60k, and you do a BT to it for say $29k - $30k (i.e., 50% of available util, or just slightly less than that), would that be considered an automatic trigger for AA by the issuer due to the large amount, or would it likely not be flagged for AA since you're still at or below 50% util?

[Anonymous]

Yes, it’s possible. 

While I don’t have any cards with CL of 60K......I have done balance transfers for way over 50% on a card with a limit of 25K and no AA occurred. IIRC it (BT) was 22Kish. 

I did not make minimum payments, and paid it off quickly. 

I think the biggest factor would be what the rest off your profile looked like at the time. Ex. Huge transfer and other cards reporting hefty balances “could” be a trigger vs huge transfer and other cards with a zero balance. 

[wasCB14]

I can imagine a lot of potentially relevant factors...

The issuer

Your credit scores/reports

Internal score

Income

Spend or BTs

The nature of the spend

How long you carry the balance

How large the first few payments are

[pipeguy]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Yes, it’s possible. 

While I don’t have any cards with CL of 60K......I have done balance transfers for way over 50% on a card with a limit of 25K and no AA occurred. IIRC it (BT) was 22Kish. 

I did not make minimum payments, and paid it off quickly. 

I think the biggest factor would be what the rest off your profile looked like at the time. Ex. Huge transfer and other cards reporting hefty balances “could” be a trigger vs huge transfer and other cards with a zero balance. 

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+1

It depends on the lender, personally, I've done it more than once with Discover, NFCU, DCU, BoA with no AA of any kind - not sure I'd try it with Comenity, Barclays or any of the more skittish lenders.  

[Anonymous]

I would have to agree it would depend on your file, and also the particular bank.

The banks that send out the BT offers all the time would have to be used to people 

using them all the time also. 

I BT recently with PNC my (long time) personal/business bank

$9k/$10.2k on my personal card couple months ago 88%  

$12k/25k on my business card just last month 48% 

Nothing happened yet, however yes make sure to have healthy hearty payments

to show them you are not being silly in your finances and they should be all good.

Also, have a plan for back up in place in case something does question it.

I can pay these both off instantly, but at 0% apr, I always use BT to my advantage.

Have done many with Disco, BOA, Wells Fargo, Cap1, Chase 

I always for for the 0% BT with 0% fees, but at most 2% fee

I never personally do the 3-5% that chase or disco normally offer, I wait until

the offers are less, or with the new 0% apr of some sign up bonuses that cards have.

[K-in-Boston]

Other than Barclaycard, neither DW nor myself have received any AA for high utilization when doing balance transfers, and we do them constantly while we're working on paying off our debt.  BoA we've had up to like 89% and they're fine with it.  We usually have one or several cards with 60+% at any given time.  As already stated, it's really going to depend on what your profile looks like and how you're repaying.  If a majority of your cards are heavily utilized, you're more likely to see some AA somewhere.  If you're making minimum payments, you're more likely to see AA somewhere.

As I said, Barclaycard was the only one to AA us in recent years.  DW used a convenience check for like $6k (needed to pay a contractor who didn't accept credit cards), and paid it off in a few months.  A few months later, used another one for a BT for like $6k again, made a payment over $1000, and they balance chased her on statement cut for "amount of payments have been too low."  That was about 8 months after opening the account, and her scores had climbed from about 760 when opening it to about 780 when they balance chased her; overall utilization had also decreased.  Throwing it out there as a cautionary tale, but there are just as many people that have no problems with them.