AZEO Question

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I am new to the forums and absorbing all this great information. I seen a topic on AZEO and did my research but could not find anything regarding my situation. I only have one credit card at the moment (CSP) with an SL of $13700. I currently have it at 0% utilization. I normally just pay it off before the reporting period. Given this, should I carry a small balance say under 8%? My current scores are EQ:632 TU:621 and EX:644. I would eventually like to apply for a CSR but I am not sure if right now is the best time? My take home a month is around 16k but I have generally just been bad with debt.

I have three car loans and even if I pay them down substantially, for instance I sent 5k as a payment to one of them and it barely did anything to my scores. My vantage scores seem to go up quite a bit but my FICOs seem to remain stagnant. I have had several HP's mainly because I took out another auto loan in October and because of my low scores it took some creative financing to get approved and multiple HP's. At the moment I am just wondering what is the best route to increase my scores with only one card. Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you

[simplynoir]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hi,

I am new to the forums and absorbing all this great information. I seen a topic on AZEO and did my research but could not find anything regarding my situation. I only have one credit card at the moment (CSP) with an SL of $13700. I currently have it at 0% utilization. I normally just pay it off before the reporting period. Given this, should I carry a small balance say under 8%? My current scores are EQ:632 TU:621 and EX:644. I would eventually like to apply for a CSR but I am not sure if right now is the best time? My take home a month is around 16k but I have generally just been bad with debt.

I have three car loans and even if I pay them down substantially, for instance I sent 5k as a payment to one of them and it barely did anything to my scores. My vantage scores seem to go up quite a bit but my FICOs seem to remain stagnant. I have had several HP's mainly because I took out another auto loan in October and because of my low scores it took some creative financing to get approved and multiple HP's. At the moment I am just wondering what is the best route to increase my scores with only one card. Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you

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Hi and welcome to the forums, @Anonymous!

To address your questions/concerns if you're trying to perform the AZEO method you'll need another credit card other than a Chase card to complete this because any time you pay off the entire balance even after waiting til the statement generates to pay it off Chase will report to the bureaus the $0 balance since anything zero dollars they'll update immediately. Recommend if you want to keep cards held at a minimum get at least one more non-Chase card to do it. Also, heads up that due to the application rules any customer already holding a Sapphire product cannot apply for another one and signup bonus rules also prohibit from you earning the bonus from 48 months after the last time you did. Best you can do is PC your current CSP to the CSR one year after you have had said CSP because credit card act/laws prevent banks from raising AFs for the first year. For loans there's really not much to gain from getting an increased score unless you pay it off once it reaches a certain threshold (can't recall what is it off the top of my head) so you paying it off early if that's the case will not really help you.

For one credit card you have because of that $0 balance reporting and loans you have you pretty much maximized what you can do score wise short of getting one more card or two and attacking the negatives on your account that is keeping your scores down.

[Anonymous]

Thank you @simplynoir for the response! So basically it is a waiting game at this point because I only have the 3 auto loans (all current), Mortgage (current), and CSP (Current), until the negatives on my report fall off? If I was to get another card, any recommendations as to what I would qualify for given my scores EQ:632 TU:621 and EX:644?

[simplynoir]

I would have thought you would perhaps have to go the secured card route based on those scores but that CSP and its fairly large limit raised my eyebrows for sure. Not many datapoints have people getting a card - let alone their first card with a high limit - with your scores considering Chase is a little more picky with new applicants. Depending on what you're looking for I would hit the prequal sites like Disco, AMEX and CapOne just to see what results you get back to get a better picture on where you stand.

May I ask what type of negatives are on your report that is keeping your scores down?

[Anonymous]

Thank you again @simplynoir for the response. I had a few charge offs that I have since paid off. Several late payments but none in the past two years for my open accounts. The CO's though reported and because of that EQ shows my most recent late payment being 3 months ago for an account that I settled last year, TU is 13 months since my last late payment, and EX is 5 months since my last payment again for a CO I paid off last year. I am starting to get pre approval letters sent to my house for the cap one platinum card so I guess some progress is being made. I got one the other day for a USAA card. 

Some additional info on the CSP. I have had it since 2013 with an initial SL of 11200 and a few months ago they raised it to 13700. So it appears I am trending in the right direction, I just got to a point to where I finally said enough is enough a few years ago and since have been great with my payments. I am just trying to get to the next step now to where it just stays that way but I feel I need more credit cards to do so as my auto loans will be paid off this year and that will just leave the mortgage and my one credit card.

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Hi,

I am new to the forums and absorbing all this great information. I seen a topic on AZEO and did my research but could not find anything regarding my situation. I only have one credit card at the moment (CSP) with an SL of $13700. I currently have it at 0% utilization. I normally just pay it off before the reporting period. Given this, should I carry a small balance say under 8%? My current scores are EQ:632 TU:621 and EX:644. I would eventually like to apply for a CSR but I am not sure if right now is the best time? My take home a month is around 16k but I have generally just been bad with debt.

I have three car loans and even if I pay them down substantially, for instance I sent 5k as a payment to one of them and it barely did anything to my scores. My vantage scores seem to go up quite a bit but my FICOs seem to remain stagnant. I have had several HP's mainly because I took out another auto loan in October and because of my low scores it took some creative financing to get approved and multiple HP's. At the moment I am just wondering what is the best route to increase my scores with only one card. Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you

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1. You should not carry any balance at all. You should let a small balance, less than 9%, report, and then pay it off.

2. You can't have both a CSR and a CSP, so forget that idea.

3. Forget your Vantage scores, they are meaningless.

4. If you get your overall installment loan utilization percentage down to 9% or less that will give you some points in the FICO 8's and 9's.

5. The best route for you now is to try and get rid of the negatives in your profile.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the response @SouthJamaica I only have one credit card at the moment so you are saying I should still "let" a small balance be reported then obviously pay it off? 

[SouthJamaica]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Thank you for the response @SouthJamaica I only have one credit card at the moment so you are saying I should still "let" a small balance be reported then obviously pay it off? 

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Yes. Although you might want to experiment -- i.e. let it report a zero balance one month and a small balance the next, and see which nets you a better FICO 8 score. Truth is, we in this forum have very little experience with 1-credit card profiles

[Anonymous]

Just to give my own experience, I only have 1 card. When I paid off my balance with my Cap1 card, I wanted a balance reported. My closing date was the 28th and I would charge my cellphone bill on the 29th. April it reported a balance of $61 (credit score 790 on TU) when I did this in May it reported a $0 balance (790 TU) again in June a $0 balance (802 TU)...Doesnt matter to me its more about payment history now....They have to report that...

[Anonymous]

@SouthJamaica that is what I am looking at now. It has been reporting a zero balance for the past couple of months so I think this month I am going to let it sit at about 7 to 8% and see what happens. Well hopefully in the future I can become part of the multiple cards club