AOD questions - Activate Debit card? Utilization on AOD if maxed?

[Anonymous]

I got approved for an AOD visa signature a few months ago. Couple questions, I needed to sign up for AOD's savings share account. I have no reason to use this except to keep the visa signature. Do I need to activate the debit card or can I use the savings account without it?

The AOD visa credit card has a limit of only $4000. I have $90,000 total credit limit between my other 2 credit cards. If I run close to the $4k limit on my AOD card and I use less than 1% limit on the other cards, is my credit score going to tank due to high utilization on AOD? I have ~830 score now.

Thanks.

[Flfico]

There's no reason you necessarily need to activate the debit card but you do want to use the savings account at least once a year to keep it active.  Moving money into it and then paying your credit card from there should suffice. As far as your 2nd question, credit scores take both aggregate and individual utilization into consideration so maxing out a card will have an affect. Of course you could just pay off the balance before the statement cuts.

[Taurus22]

@Anonymous   Well the debit card is linked to your checking account, not your savings. I'm not sure what other checking/savings accounts you have, but the AOD checking that's tied to your debit card has a 1.75% APY dividend yield. That's pretty exceptional.

With DD (this can be any amount) and using the debit card 12 times per month, you automatically get that yield rate. I use the debit almost every morning on the way to work for a $3 biscuit which doesn't affect my cashback routine very much, and easily covers the 12 debit transactions. I split my DD between AODFCU and Affinity FCU, and keep a higher balance in AOD specifically for the 1.75% dividends.

If you have no need for it, then don't bother. The Savings account is necessary though.....it's a requirement of the CU to have an open savings account for membership.

If you max out your $4k AOD each month, there may be some drop to your score with that UTI%, but I wouldn't say it would necessarily tank. As @Flfico mentioned, you could just pay down your balance prior to statement cutting each month to avoid the UTI% hit.  From my observations, AOD usually cuts statement the last Monday of the month, so as long as you pay down prior to that your UTI% should be ok.