Pay the balance that is on the Billing Statement. Before the due date.
If you want to get them to report a certain value, such as zero, you have to figure out when your various credit card companies report to the credit bureaus. Usually they report the value that is on the Billing Statement, but a few are different. US Bank and Elan (both are a part of US Bancorp) report the amount charged on their cards aaround the end of the month, taking weekends into account.
So basically, if you want a zero balance to report, you need to stop using that particular credit card for at least several days before it generates a Statement, and pay it off several days ahead as well, since it can take time for payments to clear and then to be reflected on the statement.
If you want the charges to be reported to the credit bureau, and are just concerned about having them shown as paid in full, then just pay the amount on the statement before the due date.
@Epiphone wrote:Not that I know any better, but I have serious doubts that reporting 0 balances vs posting small utilization ratios and consistent PIFs will actually yield much of anything. It seems that many are convinced otherwise. What I've been seeing is people advising 0 reported balances on all but 1 card. I'm assuming the 1 card must rotate so none of them appear to have been sock drawered. Is that a word?
No, the one card reporting a small balance doesn't need to rotate to other cards. That optimization technique is for the FICO score, and FICO doesn't care what credit card you are using, since they don't issue credit cards. They just have a history of credit card usage that statistically implies that people with lots of credit cards that are using them all, are more likely to fail to pay them all on time. So the FICO formulas take that into account.
I guess FICO hasn't figures out that the more credit cards you have, the more bills you have to pay each month, and thus the more opportunities for someone to make an honest mistake. But, thats statistics for you. I don't believe in statistics, its all made up anyways.
The credit card companies use the FICO scores, buit thats only one of the things they look at. So its probably best to let your spending/usage patterns report normally, and only try to optimize the FICO score right before you need to use the FICO score, so right before you are applying for another credit card, or applying for a credit limit increase.
@Anonymous wrote:Rotating which card is used to report a balance is not for the benefit of FICO, it is for the benefit of getting usage reported from that card so the lender doesn't cancel it or reduce your limit.
The lender knows you're using their cards. It doesn't matter if their cards report 0 balance to the credit report agencies, they still know exactly what you have done using their cards. They might be somewhat vague in how much you use other companies cards if you don't let balances report occasionaly, though.