A Challenge to myFICO members -- Individual utilization versus overall utilization there

[Mattopotamus]

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@CH-7-Mission-Accomplished wrote:

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@Mattopotamus wrote:

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@CH-7-Mission-Accomplished wrote:

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@Mattopotamus wrote:

There is really nothing to test. > 30% (it might be 35%) on one card is worse for your credit than two cards with a 15% balance.

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With all due respect, I think you are wrong.  At least any change is not material in my hypothesis.

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Then why through some credit tracking servies would that be listed as a factor?  Obviously a Fako, but credit karma for example will list "things hurting your score" and a single card with a balance over 30% is a factor.  I think experian may also do the same.

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Not looking for an argument.  Looking for a test.  Not interested, move on.

likewise.  I just thought it has been tested and that 30% figure was based on statistics.

[Scupra]

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@Mattopotamus wrote:

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@CH-7-Mission-Accomplished wrote:

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@Mattopotamus wrote:

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@CH-7-Mission-Accomplished wrote:

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@Mattopotamus wrote:

There is really nothing to test. > 30% (it might be 35%) on one card is worse for your credit than two cards with a 15% balance.

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With all due respect, I think you are wrong.  At least any change is not material in my hypothesis.

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Then why through some credit tracking servies would that be listed as a factor?  Obviously a Fako, but credit karma for example will list "things hurting your score" and a single card with a balance over 30% is a factor.  I think experian may also do the same.

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Not looking for an argument.  Looking for a test.  Not interested, move on.

likewise.  I just thought it has been tested and that 30% figure was based on statistics.

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We know that at 30% util on one card you take a hit.. I think CH7 wants to know if you have one card report 15% and another report 15% is it really worse than one card reporting 30%? There may be too many variables across different profiles to test this though. Utilization has always made me curious

[Scupra]

I think this may be a better fit in "Understanding FICO"

[kdm31091]

Utilization is so fluid and impermanent as a scoring factor that I'm not sure why you'd want to test different theories. The difference from maximizing or not is often minimal. Of course there's no harm, but not sure how much benefit there is either. I just keep my utilization as low as practical and whatever tiny score peaks and valleys come will come.

[Anonymous]

It's hard to tell exactly how utilization hits as long as other things are going on with the profile. It SEEMED like I got big utilization dings during periods of high utilization, but I should have a data point of my own over the next two weeks as all of my accounts but one will be reporting at zero.

[CH-7-Mission-Accomplished]

For those who pay their accounts in full each month, I would just like to see the score difference with having a 1K balance report on say a 3K or 2K limit and the next month have a 1K balance report on a 10K or 15K limit.  I'm just curious to see if it's more just a couple of points difference and if it's worth micromanaging this aspect of utilization.

[Mattopotamus]

well I pretty much did that a few months ago.  I had a $2800 balance on a card with a credit limit of $5000.  I paid it off and now carry a balance of around $2800 on a card with a $48,000 limit and my score is 25-30 points higher.

edit: The exact difference was a score of 787 vs a score of 809.

[Anonymous]

I had to use my chase card for some unexpected dental work in November.  My CL is $10k.  My dental work was $5,700.  I am in my 0% apr promo period so I took advantage of it.  (57% utilization on one card and had 12% overall via 2 cards with a balance)  The most I lost was 5 pts with Equifax, the others only dropped a couple points.  At this same time, I applied for Amex and was approved so the minimal point change most likely has been to a new account affecting my AAoA.  There is also a possibility any minimal point change I had for the Chase transaction was offset with a drop in my utilization due to the $10k amex CL that reported.  

Bottom line, I had other things going on but didn't see any big impacts to my scores by charging a large transaction.

[CH-7-Mission-Accomplished]

There are detailed graphs on the other credit site created by their guru.  The graph shows a one for tradeoff on the slope up until about 50% utilization at which point the slope steepens and then sharply jumps at 90%.  This is based on overall utilization, though.