Traveling & CC use

[Anonymous]

I have been very diligent in doing the right thing to rebuild my credit and have recently hit the 700s...so do not want to see it slip.  In the month of July I have to do some business travel and all of my due dates for my CCs fall in the first of the 2 weeks I will be away from home.  I have been paying in full every month but feel if I use my card during this timeframe then it will be impossible to have a 0 balance at the time the new statement is cut.  So my question:  How do I juggle this...I could simply pay with cash but it would be so nice to use the CC for hotels, rental car, etc.   Maybe just making too much of all of this...but...  

Thanks in advance for any suggestions and advice.

[Anonymous]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

I have been very diligent in doing the right thing to rebuild my credit and have recently hit the 700s...so do not want to see it slip.  In the month of July I have to do some business travel and all of my due dates for my CCs fall in the first of the 2 weeks I will be away from home.  I have been paying in full every month but feel if I use my card during this timeframe then it will be impossible to have a 0 balance at the time the new statement is cut.  So my question:  How do I juggle this...I could simply pay with cash but it would be so nice to use the CC for hotels, rental car, etc.   Maybe just making too much of all of this...but...  

Thanks in advance for any suggestions and advice.

---

Just use your cards like normal and don't fret about the statement cut. Utilization has no memory, so yes, you may take a hit this month, but when you go back to paying almost all of them off, your score will rebound.

[takeshi74]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

So my question:  How do I juggle this...I could simply pay with cash but it would be so nice to use the CC for hotels, rental car, etc.   Maybe just making too much of all of this...but...  

---

Your call to make.  You won't have a computer or other access while traveling?  Even if high utilization reports it's no big deal.  You can adjust the following month.

[Anonymous]

I don't cares about utilization. I like having the extra time to pay off bills. Utilization has no memory so your score will bounce back after you PIF before the following statement cut.

[Anonymous]

I feel like I have seen someone say something about certain times when pulling a report a person would look at balance and payment amount, I think maybe with a mortgage? I don't know.

All I know is, as long as you pay WAY more than the minimum, you'll be just fine!

[Anonymous]

OP, I'm in the same boat as you, and I've asked myself the same question since I travel alot. I mucked up my credit, recently hit all 700s (mid-700s now), finally got some nice CC. If you're not going to apply for anything in the next month or two, I think what other posters have said makes sense: util rate has no memory. You'll be fine in another 30 days.

I'm also guilty of this type of thinking: "I'm fortunate to have been able to clean up my crap and now that I have these nice credit cards that give big rewards on travel, I don't want to screw up again so when I'm traveling and staying at hotels, I'm not going to use these nice travel cards but pay cash instead. I won't get the rewards, but at least my utlization rate will remain below .00000000000000000000000000000001 percent and my precious score will stay in the 700s." 

This isn't a criticism in any way, as I do the exact same thing. In my case, it probably hurts more than helps.

What you might want to do is stagger the cut dates on your travel cards so they're not all due at the same time. I know it's very easy to do with Cap 1, Chase, and Discover. 

[-NewGuy-]

As others have said, if it fits your needs then don't worry about the UTIL. It only takes a month to readjust.