I'll break this point into 2 sections. Section 1 will be why you shouldn't care about vantage score and section 2 will tell you how to improve it, Incase you still want to improve it after reading section 1.
section 1)
Can I ask why you care about improving vantage score?
are you looking to apply for a lender that uses them instead of FICO? You seem new so I'll let you know now that everyone on this forum will tell you the same thing.
- vantage score is completely pointless
- no venders use them
- don't pay attention to the scores
Out of all the issuers I beiieve synchrony is the only back that even uses them, and I'm not even 100% sure if they do. And if they do, it may be vantagescore 4.0, not 3.0.
Don’t get me wrong I like to look at my vantage score too but only as a curiosity thing to see how it compares to fico.
section 2)
As explained in part 1, vantage score is legit useless in terms of issuers using them, the only reason they have any market share is because the average person doesn't know enough about credit and actually thinks vantage score is important. And the fact that every issuer gives vantagescore out for free since it's so much cheaper than fico.
with that said, you asked a question. And I will answer it for you
vantage score has a couple major differences over fico.
- # of Accounts with balances is not a factor on vantage and neither is AZEO
- part of the vantage algorithm is how much available credit you have left, so if you have 5,000 in total credit limits and $2500 in balances across your accounts, you have $2500 left in available credit, the lower ur available credit the worse.
-vantage age metrics go by average age of OPEN accounts, where fico is just average age of accounts. So vantage heavily prefers to when you keep ur accounts open. Because my oldest account is current closed. My average age in fico is 3 years, and it's 5 months on vantagescore.
- vantage double hits you for high utilization, (due to the previously mentioned available credit section, so having high balances get hit twice, one for the util ratio, and again for available credit. So keep balances as low as possible
- credit mix criteria is different, vantage requires you to have a TON of accounts to get a good grade. And it doesn't specify the type of accounts they want, it just says the total number in order to get a good grade, With them anything under 11 accounts is considered poor, with fico you can have a very good rating with only 3 or so accounts. And they care what type of account. (Credit card, installment, etc.)
-vantage is known to be incredibly volatile, and will go up and down way more than fico. And often score changes with them make absolutely no sense and drive people crazy:
- I'm sure I'm probably missing some other things but i think I touched on the big items
I think increasing your credit limit is a big boost to Vantage, right? My understanding is that FICO just looks at utilization percent, but Vantage values more credit as well as utilization percent. Credit increases are free, so get them when you can.
@Varsity_Lu wrote:I think increasing you credit limit is a big boost to Vantage, right? My understanding is that FICO just looks at utilization percent but Vantage values more credit as well as utilization percent. Credit increases are free, so get them when you can.
At least in my experience, credit limit is utterly worthless as an individual metric for Vantage. Two years ago my AAoA, utilization, and pretty much every thing else except credit limit mirrored my profile today. In those two years my unsecured/revolving credit limit has grown over 10 times and my secured limit has grown by over 150 times; as for my worthless Vantage scores? Pretty much flat.
By improving your FICO score, your Vantage should increase (most of the time).
Borrowing from Experian.com on tips to increase your credit score:
- Make on-time payments
- Pay down revolving account balances
- Don't close your oldest account
- Diversify the types of credit you have
- Limit new cred applications
- Dispute inaccurate information on your credit report
- Become an authorized user
@Cblough93 wrote:I'll break this point into 2 sections. Section 1 will be why you shouldn't care about vantage score and section 2 will tell you how to improve it, Incase you still want to improve it after reading section 1.
section 1)
Can I ask why you care about improving vantage score?
are you looking to apply for a lender that uses them instead of FICO? You seem new so I'll let you know now that everyone on this forum will tell you the same thing.
- vantage score is completely pointless
- no venders use them
- don't pay attention to the scores
They're not completely pointless. Many lenders use them as they're much cheaper to pull than Fico scores so they're more likely to get pulled as preliminary scores for pre-screened offers and pre-approvals. Once an application, or HP is made, a Fico score is more likely to be pulled for underwriting.
Out of all the issuers I beiieve synchrony is the only back that even uses them, and I'm not even 100% sure if they do. And if they do, it may be vantagescore 4.0, not 3.0.
Synchrony isn't the only lender that uses Vantage scores.
Don’t get me wrong I like to look at my vantage score too but only as a curiosity thing to see how it compares to fico.
section 2)
As explained in part 1, vantage score is legit useless in terms of issuers using them, the only reason they have any market share is because the average person doesn't know enough about credit and actually thinks vantage score is important. And the fact that every issuer gives vantagescore out for free since it's so much cheaper than fico. Again, not completely useless, just not as widely used in underwriting. Yes, it's much cheaper for lenders to provide a free VS 3.0 than a Fico score.
with that said, you asked a question. And I will answer it for you
vantage score has a couple major differences over fico.
- # of Accounts with balances is not a factor on vantage and neither is AZEO
- part of the vantage algorithm is how much available credit you have left, so if you have 5,000 in total credit limits and $2500 in balances across your accounts, you have $2500 left in available credit, the lower ur available credit the worse. This is kind of contradictory. If the number of accounts with balances is elevated, then so too is the aggregate balances carried, which equates to carrying higher balances and equals lower available credit, so while AZE0 isn't a thing with VS 3.0, it can still be a thing because of it's affect on aggregate usage.-vantage age metrics go by average age of OPEN accounts, where fico is just average age of accounts. So vantage heavily prefers to when you keep ur accounts open. Because my oldest account is current closed. My average age in fico is 3 years, and it's 5 months on vantagescore.
- vantage double hits you for high utilization, (due to the previously mentioned available credit section, so having high balances get hit twice, one for the util ratio, and again for available credit. So keep balances as low as possible
- credit mix criteria is different, vantage requires you to have a TON of accounts to get a good grade. And it doesn't specify the type of accounts they want, it just says the total number in order to get a good grade, With them anything under 11 accounts is considered poor, with fico you can have a very good rating with only 3 or so accounts. And they care what type of account. (Credit card, installment, etc.)
This is simply not true. The whole premise behind VS 3.0 was the ability to generate scores for people with limited credit history, meaning that even individuals with fewer accounts can still achieve a good score if they manage their existing credit responsibly. The most critical factors for a good VS 3.0 are your payment history, and credit utilization. Making timely payments and keeping your credit utilization low can significantly enhance your score, regardless of the number of accounts you have.
-vantage is known to be incredibly volatile, and will go up and down way more than fico. And often score changes with them make absolutely no sense and drive people crazy:
- I'm sure I'm probably missing some other things but i think I touched on the big items
VS 3.0 is generally more sensitive to changes such as credit utilization (bigger score swings up and down based on usage), recent credit behavior (aside from utilization, the frequency of adding new CC accounts can be scored more harshly and inquiries are counted for 24 months) , account mix, and payment history compared to FICO 8. This can lead to more significant fluctuations in your score based on your credit usage and management.
Thanks fico Mike o but I'm far from a vantagescore score expert. I thought i knew a good amount on this subject but Joe rockhead appears to know more. And I have no reason to doubt his knowledge. Everything i stated was from comparing the sections on the apps. (Credit karma, credit sesame, and fico.
For example as you can see below, credit karma requires between 11-20 accounts to get a fair rating for number of accounts. Where fico only requires a few. So this is where i got most of my information.
It actually appears Joe rock head knows more about it than me. I'm not afraid to admit when I'm wrong, and in this case he seems to think the information i provided was incorrect. And I don't have any good reason to doubt him.
then there are things i was not totally sure on like how many vendors actually pull a vs3 score when taking applications. I thought it was just synchrony and maybe a couple small credit unions.
so please don't take anything I say as gospel. It's just data collected from going through the different apps and reading posts on here. As other members may have different opinions and they have been on this forum much longer.
you mentioned vantage being geared towards people with limited historay.
I did want to add that while vantage wants you to have a ton of acts for a good grade. That section is still only 10% of your total score. You can still have a very good score if you only have a few accounts. I wasn't trying to say you couldn't have a good score without a ton of accounts. Just that vantage scores " credit mix section" is big on total number of accounts and doesn't care what type of accounts they are.
And when i was talking about the accounts with balances I wasn't trying to say that aggregate util or total balances owed don't matter. I was simply saying that fico rewards you for having a low % of acts with balances, it doesn't matter if you owed $1 on each card. If the card has a balance, it counts. So you can have a very low aggregate util ratio but still get dinged for too many acts with balances. I was speaking strictly on the acts with balances and AZEO metrics.
just wanted to clarify so there wasn't any confusion.