AZEO - must zero be $0 ... ?

[expatCanuck]

Working towards AZEO.  Need to account for last month's interest.  My question - is zero in fact $0, or will 0% suffice?

Example:

I pay off the final $500 of a $10K line from the most recent statement, but there was $1000 carried from the previous statement.  As I understand it, I owe interest on the $500 delta from that previous statement.  At (say) 16.99%, that's $7.08 (if my math is correct).

Let's say my calculations are off, and I end up owing $15 on a $10K line.  That's .15%, which will round to 0% on a credit report. 

Even so, am I correct in thinking that that will result in an account reporting a balance, and I won't get the AZEO boost?

[Anonymous]

Hi exPat.  My comments below in blue.

---

@expatCanuck wrote:

Working towards AZEO.  Need to account for last month's interest.  My question - is zero in fact $0, or will 0% suffice?

Example:

I pay off the final $500 of a $10K line from the most recent statement, but there was $1000 carried from the previous statement.  As I understand it, I owe interest on the $500 delta from that previous statement.  At (say) 16.99%, if that's $7.08 (if my math is correct).

Let's say my calculations are off, and I end up owing $15 on a $10K line.  That's .15%, which will round to 0% on a credit report. 

A more accurate way to say that is this: many third-party credit monitoring services (CMS) will show, in their high-level summary of your report, that your utilization in this case is 0%.  That is, that particular CMS will round downward in its front-end summary.  The credit report itself is just a list of accounts and their balances.  Credit reports do not in themselves make claims about your utilization.

The back-end FICO algorithm, however, always rounds up.  Thus the $15 balance you describe would be rounded up to a 1% individual utilization and (if it were the only card with a balance) a 1% total utilization.

Even so, am I correct in thinking that that will result in an account reporting a balance....

Yes, you are correct

.... and I won't get the AZEO boost?

No, you are mistaken here.  The penalty occurs when you have ALL cards at $0.  Since you are reporting a balance, you are not at $0.  It looks like you have seven cards, so whether you have 1 card reporting a balance or 2 it will likely be the same result.

---

[HeavenOhio]

---

@Anonymous wrote:
It looks like you have seven cards, so whether you have 1 card reporting a balance or 2 it will likely be the same result.

---

---

Based on data gathered here, it'll likely be the same result, but it may not. In my case, my EQ score got dinged with two of eight cards reporting. I've closed two cards, and I get the same ding when two of six report.

My suggestion is to take AZEO to it's fullest, then test to see what you can get away with or to see what dings you're willing to take. I'm perfectly willing to take the five-point ding for allowing an extra card to report.

[expatCanuck]

Thanks, CGiD & HO.

FYI, I'm trying to offset the anticipated hit for five pending new accounts that will report in Q1 2018 -- a mortgage (refi), HELoan, and 3CCs.  (I'm now in a considerably better financial place than I was four months ago, but I expect it'll take a season for the FICO scores settle.)

[arkane]

I'm gonna quote myself from another thread and share a DP:

@arkane wrote:
All new accounts have started reporting, and I'm currently AZEO with the Uber visa showing a $260 balance. TU08 score is 777 as of Dec 19 according to BoA, with "length of time accounts have been established" and "lack of recent installment loan information" cited as ding factors.

So in one month I went from:

- one open revolver, 3% util, AAoA 5 years, 0 inq

to:

- four open revolvers, 1% util, AAoA 1 year 4 months, 1 inq

And my TU08 score dropped "only" 25 points from 802 to 777. I was so worried I'd see a massive 50+ point landslide due to significantly slashing my AAoA and going from 0-->1 inq, so I'm really happy with this outcome. I opened an Alliant SSL on Dec 14 so hopefully the score will only go up from here once that starts reporting (I plan on sticking to the AZEO routine religiously )