3-month Plan For Maximizing Score

[Jazee]

I need my score maximized in 3 months. Currently my Fico 8 is 737, TU 668, EQF 671.  I have 4 credit card accounts (one of which is Amazon Store Card), 3 of the four credit accounts are about 3 years old and one is about 20 years old.  An Auto loan 3 years into 5-year loan.  No other debt accounts. 1 hard inquiry with removal date (according to Experian Sep 2024). No collections or charge offs.

The thing weighing the score down is just my credit uilization: 70%.  I expect to be a 60% in 1 month, and 40-50% in another 3 months.  Not buying a house this year.

The obvious answer everyone would of course respond with is pay off as much debt as possible.  So I'm looking for things to do other than that to maximize my score in 3 months.

The only other slight weekness is my credit mix with no mortgage or personal loan.  Yet my score is I think too low to apply for a personal loan  and that's going to lower my average account age.  My cards are with USAA, NFCU, and Amazon (Synchrony). The Amazon card is already $10K which it's almost always $0 balance or lower than 5% utilization. NFCU My Sig Card with the lowest APR is the majority of my debt with a $25K and 90% utilization, so that's not going up.  I have another card with NFCU which is 70% utilized but will be 0% within 3 months.  USAA I think compared to NFCU is much less apt to do a credit increase and if they do a Hard Pull and deny that's only going to lower my score a few points.

I'm thinking the best chance is in 3 months ask for CLI on the lower limit NFCU. If a soft pull, no harm no foul.  What I'm not sure about is trying to apply for a line of credit which I just use a little each month and pay off.  But it seems the best time to do that would be when my score is highest in 3 months and at which time opening a line of credit is again just going to lower my average account age, but would the increase in available credit more than compensate? I'm thinking maybe if it's at least 10% increase in credit $4,500 but not something like a $500 NFCU CLOC. LOL.

[Tiggr]

Maybe request for an increase on the NFCU now through the app (for some reason CLI requests through the app are a soft pull) and if you get denied you have a good enough amount of time between (3 months) to do it again. Whichever way you try, you're right that paying down util is the best option. 

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[AverageJoesCredit]

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@Tiggr wrote:

Maybe request for an increase on the NFCU now through the app (for some reason CLI requests through the app are a soft pull) and if you get denied you have a good enough amount of time between (3 months) to do it again. Whichever way you try, you're right that paying down util is the best option. 

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This. Navy should be SP, no harm no foul. If they deny now you won't be penalized for it lol, sorta like the good old days of requesting cli from Discover.  Navy can suprise you when you need it most but if not going down big time on one card can be helpful in 3 months. I would also try for a cli on Amazon, sp as well. Nothing ventured nothing gained. Good luck

[Tiggr]

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@AverageJoesCredit wrote:

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@Tiggr wrote:

Maybe request for an increase on the NFCU now through the app (for some reason CLI requests through the app are a soft pull) and if you get denied you have a good enough amount of time between (3 months) to do it again. Whichever way you try, you're right that paying down util is the best option. 

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This. Navy should be SP, no harm no foul. If they deny now you won't be penalized for it lol, sorta like the good old days of requesting cli from Discover.  Navy can suprise you when you need it most but if not going down big time on one card can be helpful in 3 months. I would also try for a cli on Amazon, sp as well. Nothing ventured nothing gained. Good luck

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I was reading around and some people reported NFCU doing a hard pull if you requested a CLI over the phone or through messages. That's why I specified through the app. I didn't know about discover though, recent change?

[FicoMike0]

I agree, getting utilization down is most important. You mention not having a loan. Since your with navy, they're famous for ssl. I did one with penfed, got 30-40 points. Since you're strung out with cc debt, the up front capital might be a problem. Penfed will do ssl for about half what navy requires. It's a soft pull, I wouldn't think it's hard to qualify, since your borrowing your own money. It does count as new account. 

[Thomas_Thumb]

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@Jazee wrote:

I need my score maximized in 3 months. Currently my Fico 8 is 737, TU 668, EQF 671.  I have 4 credit card accounts (one of which is Amazon Store Card), 3 of the four credit accounts are about 3 years old and one is about 20 years old.  An Auto loan 3 years into 5-year loan.  No other debt accounts. 1 hard inquiry with removal date (according to Experian Sep 2024). No collections or charge offs.

The thing weighing the score down is just my credit uilization: 70%.  I expect to be a 60% in 1 month, and 40-50% in another 3 months.  Not buying a house this year.

The obvious answer everyone would of course respond with is pay off as much debt as possible.  So I'm looking for things to do other than that to maximize my score in 3 months.

The only other slight weekness is my credit mix with no mortgage or personal loan.  Yet my score is I think too low to apply for a personal loan  and that's going to lower my average account age.  My cards are with USAA, NFCU, and Amazon (Synchrony). The Amazon card is already $10K which it's almost always $0 balance or lower than 5% utilization. NFCU My Sig Card with the lowest APR is the majority of my debt with a $25K and 90% utilization, so that's not going up.  I have another card with NFCU which is 70% utilized but will be 0% within 3 months.  

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You have an open car loan. Adding a SSL or personal loan will not improve score. It would typically drop score due to a new HP and reduced AAoA for installment loans. A known exception to score loss is when the new loan is used to paydown high revolving utilization to a low level. The new loan penalty still happens but is overshadowed by the low UT score boost.

For a decent point gain you definitely need to get all cards below 49% utilization. More preferrably is to get them all below 29%. Instead of taking the one card from 70% to $0, consider taking it to between 45%-48% and apply more $ to the 90% UT card.

You do want atleast 1 card reporting a $0 balance. 100% of cards reporting balances almost always hurts score for profiles with more than 2 cards and many 2 card profiles as well.

Note: Fico scores individual card utilization based on card with highest UT %.

Increasing card CLs thru soft pull CLIs can help if it allows you to get card UT below a threshold (such as 49% or 29%). Unfortunately, your unsecured credit with NFCU is highly leveraged so CLIs on those cards appear unlikely. I'd be concerned about a potential CLD.

[gregbowers]

Focus on reducing your credit card utilization aggressively over the next three months. Request a credit limit increase on your NFCU card to help lower your overall utilization ratio. Avoid new credit applications to prevent additional hard inquiries. Keep monitoring your credit report and ensure all payments are made on time. These steps should help maximize your credit score effectively within your timeframe.

[SouthJamaica]

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@Jazee wrote:

I need my score maximized in 3 months. Currently my Fico 8 is 737, TU 668, EQF 671.  I have 4 credit card accounts (one of which is Amazon Store Card), 3 of the four credit accounts are about 3 years old and one is about 20 years old.  An Auto loan 3 years into 5-year loan.  No other debt accounts. 1 hard inquiry with removal date (according to Experian Sep 2024). No collections or charge offs.

The thing weighing the score down is just my credit uilization: 70%.  I expect to be a 60% in 1 month, and 40-50% in another 3 months.  Not buying a house this year.

The obvious answer everyone would of course respond with is pay off as much debt as possible.  So I'm looking for things to do other than that to maximize my score in 3 months.

The only other slight weekness is my credit mix with no mortgage or personal loan.  Yet my score is I think too low to apply for a personal loan  and that's going to lower my average account age.  My cards are with USAA, NFCU, and Amazon (Synchrony). The Amazon card is already $10K which it's almost always $0 balance or lower than 5% utilization. NFCU My Sig Card with the lowest APR is the majority of my debt with a $25K and 90% utilization, so that's not going up.  I have another card with NFCU which is 70% utilized but will be 0% within 3 months.  USAA I think compared to NFCU is much less apt to do a credit increase and if they do a Hard Pull and deny that's only going to lower my score a few points.

I'm thinking the best chance is in 3 months ask for CLI on the lower limit NFCU. If a soft pull, no harm no foul.  What I'm not sure about is trying to apply for a line of credit which I just use a little each month and pay off.  But it seems the best time to do that would be when my score is highest in 3 months and at which time opening a line of credit is again just going to lower my average account age, but would the increase in available credit more than compensate? I'm thinking maybe if it's at least 10% increase in credit $4,500 but not something like a $500 NFCU CLOC. LOL.

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1. You would not benefit from adding an installment loan. Your auto loan covers the installment loan bases.

2. Neither would you benefit from adding a CLOC. While adding a CLOC might give you a little better credit mix, you don't want the inquiry and you don't want a new account, so scotch that idea as well.

3. I know this isn't what you were hoping to hear, but the best thing you can do for your scores is to stay the course, paying everything down as best you can, avoiding any new applications or other hard pulls.

4. As you yourself have noted, there's no harm in soft pull applications for CLI's.

[FicoMike0]

When I don't want a hp, I keep all three reports frozen. That way, I know any cli will be a sp. 

[Jazee]

Yes I always keep everything frozen unless I want to allow a HP.