A better understanding of AZEO ?

[Fico82]

Hey FicoFam ! , 

       So i have a discover cc where i am the primary and i have my wife as an AU and my wife has a discover where she is primary and im AU on her card. So i decided to pay off my cc to 0 balance to basically have max dti on point and thought i would get a boost being that her card is still reporting a balance . I guess AZEO method doesn't work in this example? Where did i go wrong , do i need to put back a small balance on my cc to gain the points backs that i lost ? Now the downside would be when we apply for mortgage soon they will have to factor her min payment and mine if i put back a small balance? What you think i should do ? Thanks in advance .

[Anonymous]

It sounds like you've incurred the "no revolving credit" penalty, since for whatever reason the account that you're an AU on isn't being "counted" by the FICO algorithm.  This is one of the reasons it is always recommended on this forum that when implementing AZEO you want the one account with a balance to be one of your primary cards (not an AU account).  It's cool that you found out that it isn't counted, though.  You can also infer since it's also a Discover AU account that if your wife were to implement AZEO using your Discover account that she'd more than likely realize the same penalty.

[HeavenOhio]

AUs don't necessarily work as the single card that reports a positive balance. Also avoid using a store card, a charge card (such as AMEX Gold), or a card with a limit over 34k.

For AZEO, it's best that you and your wife each choose a card where you're the primary user and the other isn't an AU. All cards with AUs should have balances of zero. If this isn't possible, I guess the next best thing would be to report a tiny balance (at least $5 but not much more) on a second card in which you're the primary user. If the balance is tiny, your DTI should still look good.

[Fico82]

Thank you all for the info , I will go ahead and put a small $5 balance on my primary.

[Fico82]

So , I just checked my wife's fico account and she also lost 6-8 points because my primary reported 0 balance. She is an AU on my account which makes no sense . What you guys think about this? Im starting to think that fico scoring likes balances on cards . Maybe I should put a $5 balance on all cards across the board ??

[Anonymous]

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@Fico82 wrote:
So , I just checked my wife's fico account and she also lost 6-8 points because my primary reported 0 balance.

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Keep in mind that alert reasons are not always the reason for a score change provided at the time of the alert.  You could very well be making a wrongful correlation between the two.  Reporting balances across all your cards wouldn't be favorable in terms of Fico scoring relative to having reported balances on less of them.

[iv]

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@Fico82 wrote:
So , I just checked my wife's fico account and she also lost 6-8 points because my primary reported 0 balance. She is an AU on my account which makes no sense . What you guys think about this? Im starting to think that fico scoring likes balances on cards . Maybe I should put a $5 balance on all cards across the board ??

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There's a fairly odd thing that I and a few other people here have observed with FICO 8 and AU accounts - there appears to be a minor negative effect in some cases if all AU accounts on the report are at $0.

It's as though primary accounts and AU accounts are tracked in two separate groups, with a no-usage (all-zero) penalty applied to each separately.

[Anonymous]

iv Are there any threads on that? That’s the first time I’ve ever heard that and I would like to read more about it.

I would’ve guessed the point loss was definitely from something else and that he was making an improper correlation as BBS suggested.

And in addition to the great advice above, I would also add: do not use a credit union card as your AZEO card.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:
And in addition to the great advice above, I would also add: do not use a credit union card as your AZEO card.

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I forgot what kind of 'credit union card' doesn't work for AZEO. I'm pretty sure you told me before in another thread.

I just used my credit union Mastercard for AZEO ($35 balance) and I'm seeing a shift downward of the 'Accounts with balances' reason along with decent point gains (e.g., TU 8 +14, EX 2 +6,  more to come on my 3B later today).

[Anonymous]

CassieCard Credit union credit cards are kind of an unknown. For instance, I got one point less when I used a credit union card as my AZEO card. So it’s not to say that one cannot be used but unless you test it first, it MAY not give you the highest score possible. And just for S and Gs, the credit union card that gave me one less point, shares the same processor as yours. So it’s not the fact that it may not work or that it may not shift reason codes, it just may not be optimal. But then again if it’s from a different processor who knows. It’s just the unknown.

Before I would use one, I would test it. That’s why the recommendation to use a national bankcard, since then there is no question and no need to test.