Getting a Higher Fico Score

[Anonymous]

I recently paid off approximately 20K that was accumulated on 5 credit cards, leaving a credit card balance of 6K between three cards.   All my cards have been paid on time forever.  If my score was about 630 prior to paying off the cards will my score get closer to 700 now?  All I have for existing open balances is a car, my mortgage, and the two credit cards. Since I paid off all my cards that were almost maxed increase my score and when?  Thanks for any input.  Cheers, Rick

[llecs]

Congrats! You'll certainly be better off score-wise. The points gained all depend on the overall and individual utilizations on each card in relation to the individual and overall utilizations after the cards report.

[marty56]

Also I find that a single card reporting a balance gives me the best results.  It is harder to manage it reporting wise though

[Anonymous]

If you were near your limits on those 5 cards (say 90% utilization), you could easily see 30-40 points from paying down $14k.  Part of that gain will be only showing balances on 2 of 5 cards, but you could get some more points once you only have a balance on 1 card and its under 10% of its limit. 

You should see it a week or so after all of those cards issue statements (or a bit at a time if they are not areound the same date each month).  If you did this right after they all issued statements, it could take 4-5 weeks for all of the points to show up.  I know it sucks waiting!

Nice job and good luck!