Cheap Service that Bills Regularly?

[MarineVietVet]

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@Revelate wrote:

 

Payments and potentially high balance over the statement period are reported. Even exact dates as well as a few other metrics for that matter though our own resolution of what's reported to the bureaus is admittedly fuzzy.  If you're using the card for a recurring bill, the bureaus, vis a vis FICO, can determine that regardless of whether you let a balance report or not.

They'll also see though you're not using the card very heavily .  

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As always YMMV but in my experience this hasn't caused any problems at all. I charge the same boring $16 for XM Radio every month and have done so for years with no hint of an AA. The same for my cable bill and DSL service each month. The amount is always the same but the CCC's seem happy enough.

[Revelate]

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@MarineVietVet wrote:

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@Revelate wrote:

 

Payments and potentially high balance over the statement period are reported. Even exact dates as well as a few other metrics for that matter though our own resolution of what's reported to the bureaus is admittedly fuzzy.  If you're using the card for a recurring bill, the bureaus, vis a vis FICO, can determine that regardless of whether you let a balance report or not.

They'll also see though you're not using the card very heavily .  

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As always YMMV but in my experience this hasn't caused any problems at all. I charge the same boring $16 for XM Radio every month and have done so for years with no hint of an AA. The same for my cable bill and DSL service each month. The amount is always the same but the CCC's seem happy enough.

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Yeah I wouldn't expect it to be much of a problem if any.  Certainly in my case I just dump recurring bills on cards that I'm not actively using.

It's likely more of an underwriting concern anyway: in looking at my Experian report, with very few additional items which they're well within their rights to request on a mortgage at least, an excrutiatingly detailed financial picture could be pieced together for me with some very easy assumptions (such as I have an auto loan, ergo I must have car insurance, and based on my FICO score and the amount of debt, even a rough estimate of my insurance payment could be made).

[Anonymous]

So after moving some things around, I've implemented the following approach, with my three open CC accounts:

1) Oldest Cap1 (750 CL, no rewards)- Just Netflix at $10 or whatever. PIF, to report $0 balance

2) Rewards Cap1 (750 CL, 1% cash back)- Cable, Cell Phones, and Internet (total ~240/month). PIF to report $0 balance

3) Chase Freedom (1500 CL, 1-5% cash back)- Daily expenses (gas, groceries, and entertainment), keep a balance of ~$100 reporting

On #2, I decided to move all auto-pays here, because I _loathe_ an auto-payment account hitting our checking account. It's always made me nervous! My thought here is, after we no longer need "optimal" balance reporting, we just make a single monthly payment to the card to cover all bills, and a balance may occasionally report.

Also, if a company improperly collects an auto-pay (i.e. afetr we cancel the account, for example), we have better odds of disputing with a CC methinks.

Anyone see holes in this, aside from general credit card management risks?

[Revelate]

I think that's just fine: as a matter of fact it's what I'm doing other than I don't worry about my revolving balances much when I'm not applying for anything as long as I can pay them off and get the updated balance to report pre-application... also because I have a 19.35% auto-loan that really deserves the large chunk of my free cash flow as the interest charged is so much higher (by an order of magnitude) than anything else I have currently.