Utilization help!

[slvrhwk]

Hi everyone,

I have a Capital One Visa Platinum credit card. My credit line was $1250. Last week, I got a CLI and my credit line is now $4250. I usually keep a utilization of <10% on my card. My current payment is due in 4 days. What should I calculate my utilization against? 1250 or 4250? I was thinking to have a utilization of ~350 (<10% or 4250). But if the credit line in the system for this statement will be 1250, my utilization would go up to 28%! This might be a silly question, but I really need to clarify since my credit history is still fairly new and I'm aiming to build good credit. Thanks!

[Broke_Triathlete]

I would calculate it on $1,250 for CS purposes because it may take a month or two for Cap 1 to report the increase to the bureaus! Congrats on your increase!

[1GaDawg85]

do you have any other cards?

[slvrhwk]

I have a Barclays Arrival+ World Mastercard. It had a $600 limit. But, this card's limit also increased to $2500 on the same day as my Capital One.

[1GaDawg85]

utilization is figured across the board....all credit limits are taken into account with this

[Anonymous]

Pay the statement balance in full. Pay more than the statement balance if over 10% of old limit. Many credit cards report on the statement date. If so, paying the outstanding balance in full is fine too. If you don't know the date your card reports, your credit reports can tell you (credit karma reports the TU report date and offers a free weekly TU report if you need to pull a new one).

Don't pay interest just to get a boost to your score. You can always PIF the statement balance and still show some balance on one of your cards. You just have to figure out their report date and make sure at least one card shows a balance on its report date. 

[slvrhwk]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Pay the statement balance in full. Pay more than the statement balance if over 10% of old limit. Many credit cards report on the statement date. If so, paying the outstanding balance in full is fine too. If you don't know the date your card reports, your credit reports can tell you (credit karma reports the TU report date and offers a free weekly TU report if you need to pull a new one).

Don't pay interest just to get a boost to your score. You can always PIF the statement balance and still show some balance on one of your cards. You just have to figure out their report date and make sure at least one card shows a balance on its report date. 

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I think my question probably wasn't very clear. I always PIF. I still show some balance of <%10 for each of my cards. I wanted to know against what do I calculate my balance, old credit line or new credit line. But I think it's safer to assume that the new credit line has not been reported by the companies. I'll keep my balance based on the old one.

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@1GaDawg85 wrote:

utilization is figured across the board....all credit limits are taken into account with this

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I understand that. I usually keep my utilization (statement balance) to <10% for both the cards. Another question, is it okay to keep balance on only one of the cards and have the remaining ones report 0 balance? I keep it simple and have both my cards report a small balance.

Thanks a lot guys for your answers. It helps a lot.