AZEO and <8.9% ?

[SouthJamaica]

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@wvasweetness wrote:

To get the maximum benefit, my aggregate until should be less than 8.9%, correct?

Current cards:

Disney Chase: $81/$5200

Cap One: $0/$1700

AU on Cap One: $0/1500

Discover Silver: $0/1800

= $81/$8700 (not counting the AU) 

So as long as I keep my balance on my Chase under $774, I'm getting "max points"? And in this scenario, the balance doesn't matter as long as it's less than 8.9%? (For example: $5 balance vs $700 balance - both are under that threshold). 

Thanks!

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1. Different scoring models are affected differently. I'll assume you're talking about FICO 8's and not about your mortgage scores.

2. No one really knows what the thresholds are for aggregate revolving utilization. Sure 8.9% is good. But 6% is even better. And 3% is probably better than that.

3. There is an all zero penalty which you might experience if all your cards report at zero balance. It is important that one of your cards report a balance. Your Chase card can't be relied upon for that, because as soon as you pay it off Chase will send a mid-cycle report of the zero balance.

[SouthJamaica]

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@wvasweetness wrote:

@AllZero  - mortgage scores are what I'm most concerned about right now.

Based on your reply, sounds like I'd better keep it under 4.5% "just in case". 

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If mortgage scores are what you are most concerned about right now, then the important thing is to maintain AZEO -- all zero except one. I.e. all but one of the cards should report a zero balance, and you shouldn't rely on the Chase card as the one reporting a balance.

[wvasweetness]

"Your Chase card can't be relied upon for that, because as soon as you pay it off Chase will send a mid-cycle report of the zero balance."

Can you expand on this detail on not depending on the Chase... because I am right now!

Edited to add: I did some reading on this board and found the answer.  If I leave the same $10 on the card (yes, I know I'm paying interest on that $10), then this shouldn't be a concern, right?

[Anonymous]

That's correct, but it's honestly just easier to switch your AZEO card to a non-Chase product so that you don't have to worry about an off-cycle $0 paydown reporting as such.

[Anonymous]

Just pay the statement Balance so you don’t have any interest. Just make sure you make a small charge a few days before you do. Since statement balance will be a couple dollars below the actual balance, it won’t hit zero and won’t report 0.

[wvasweetness]

Just wanted to report back and say that $500 does not seem to be a threshold for me. There was no score change when I allowed $510 to report on the below Chase card vs. allowing $450 to report.  

Disney Chase: $510/$5200, and then $450/$5200

Cap One: $0/$1700

AU on Cap One: $0/1500

Discover Silver: $0/1800

I'm doing a balance of right at 2% this month, to report in a couple of days, and will report back on score change.

[Anonymous]

If you saw no score change, not only did you rule out $500 being a threshold for your file, but you also ruled out a shift from 5% to 4% utilization as being a threshold.

[wvasweetness]

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@Anonymous wrote:

If you saw no score change, not only did you rule out $500 being a threshold for your file, but you also ruled out a shift from 5% to 4% utilization as being a threshold.

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Exactly right.  Not what I expected! I'm guessing 2% will see a score change... we will see.

[Anonymous]

What makes you think 2% may be one on your profile?

I don't believe I've ever found a single percentage under 9% that I've been able to nail down as an aggregate utilization threshold on my file.  There are a couple of times that I've seen a blip somewhere in the 4%-6% range, but I've personally leaned more toward raw dollars being the driving force, perhaps $10k in total balances for example.  I haven't done enough testing for it to be conclusive enough, nor are my combined balances consistently high enough to really be condusive to frequent testing.

[wvasweetness]

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@Anonymous wrote:

What makes you think 2% may be one on your profile?

I don't believe I've ever found a single percentage under 9% that I've been able to nail down as an aggregate utilization threshold on my file.  There are a couple of times that I've seen a blip somewhere in the 4%-6% range, but I've personally leaned more toward raw dollars being the driving force, perhaps $10k in total balances for example.  I haven't done enough testing for it to be conclusive enough, nor are my combined balances consistently high enough to really be condusive to frequent testing.

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I don't have any reason to think 2% may be a threshold for me. I made some notes of claimed thresholds (both percentages and $$) from other posters and have just been trying them out to see if there's any change. I don't have balances large enough by the statement date to try out larger thresholds, so I've only really been trying smaller ones.