AZEO queston

[Thomas_Thumb]

---

@NRB525wrote:

AMEX uses whatever last SP they did, which is likely 60 days or so in the past. That is the main reason the shorthand 61 days is regurgitated as advice, because it gives AMEX a chance to take another SP after your application HP. They also do not use the HP, so if no SP was done recently, they might use a SP from before your app.

The other factor in your file is you have two AMEX, the charger and the revolver, correct? This means half of all your cards are AMEX and contribute to their internal scoring method. That should carry a lot of weight.

An AZEO method would only possibly have an influence on an AMEX 3X CLI request if it is your first ever AMEX, and you had already been diligent about maintaining AZEO every day for three months since you cannot predict the SP timing. Or, you could just use the AMEX regularly and pay on time. That has a stronger influence on an AMEX CLI than any two point gain ( and low swipe value indication ) that comes from AZEO.

In case it is not clear, I think AZEO is a waste of time.

---

In general, I think AZEO is over sold as a strategy for good credit management. If a person uses cards as the situation dictates and then PIFs statement balances it's at least as good as AZEO in building positive credit history.

Sure, allowing a majority of cards to report "small" balances vs one card only may cost 10 points. However, unless you need those points to reach a score threshold, it's not worth the aggrevation.

Side note: AZEO is not all that critical for the older Fico mortgage scores either. However... EQ Fico 04 (score 5) does punsih the mortgage score if more than 50% of cards report balances (assuminjg you have at least 3 cards).

[Anonymous]

---

@Thomas_Thumbwrote:

---

If a person uses cards as the situation dictates and then PIFs statement balances it's at least as good as AZEO in building positive credit history.

---

I have myself tried to stay on message when the subject of AZEO comes up, which is to remind people that AZEO does not help a person build positive credit history at all (i.e. gradually improve over an extended period of time).  It's primary value (such as it is) is in the 40 days before an important credit app, like a car or mortgage.  All the points you get from AZEO can be gotten very quickly, after which a person can resume the simpler approach of allowing cards to report balances naturally as they are used.

[OmarR]

---

@Anonymouswrote:

---

@OmarRWhy #4??

---

Under some scoring models, account with credit limits of $30k+ are ignored from calculating revolving utilization, so if you used one of those cards as your AZEO, it could be ignored and you'd have a scoring penalty for "no revolving credit use."

---

Wow.

So what if someone has multiple cards ALL with $30K+?

Is AZEO futile for them(in those scoring models)?

[Anonymous]

If someone only had cards with limits so great that they were excluded by whatever algorithm doesn't count them, they would always be seen as having zero revolving debt and take the score ding of ~15-20 points that goes along with it, regardless of if 1 of them had a reported balance or all of them had a reported balance.  If this person were to CLD one of their cards to $25k and allow a small balance to report on it, they'd be successfully implementing AZEO and would pick up those ~15-20 points.

[Anonymous]

BBS is right.  And remember too that different models have different thresholds for when FICO removes a card from its Amounts Owed consideration.

Testing in the last year established that for FICO 8 the threshold is somewhere in the 51-69k range.  (Specifically 50k was tested and it was safe, and someone else tested 70k and it was excluded.)

Other folks established that for one of the much earlier models the threshold was 35k or 30k.

Because almost everyone has at least one card with a limit of 29k or less, it makes sense as a practical strategy to advise people to choose a card with a limit under that.  Then you don't have to worry which model the lender is using.

[Thomas_Thumb]

---

@Anonymouswrote:

BBS is right.  And remember too that different models have different thresholds for when FICO removes a card from its Amounts Owed consideration.

Testing in the last year established that for FICO 8 the threshold is somewhere in the 51-69k range.  (Specifically 50k was tested and it was safe, and someone else tested 70k and it was excluded.)

Other folks established that for one of the much earlier models the threshold was 35k or 30k.

Because almost everyone has at least one card with a limit of 29k or less, it makes sense as a practical strategy to advise people to choose a card with a limit under that.  Then you don't have to worry which model the lender is using.

---

I have an AU card with a CL of $34.9K and it counts toward my aggregate CL on the older Fico 04 and Fico 98 models. The threshold might be $35k but it's not $30k based on my data.

[Anonymous]

Interesting that your limit is $34.9k on that trade line.  Did you intentionally keep it below $35k for the reason being discussed here, or was that just a coincidence?

[Thomas_Thumb]

BBS,

That was the SL for the card when DW opened it back in the 90s. I thought we opened it as a joint card. However, when I misplaced my card and never replaced it I think my status was changed to AU (now over 10 years of non use for me).

DW has never asked for a CLI so it has stayed at $34.9k.

After joining the MyFico forums I saw posts suggesting $35k as a threshold for including cards in the older Fico mortgage models. Since then I decided to maintain CLs on my cards to under $35k as I have no need for higher CLs on my revolvers.

[Note - My Discover card has a $31k CL and it too counts on Fico 98 and Fico 04]

[expatCanuck]

---

@NRB525wrote:
Spoiler alert: It will make Zero difference in your 3X CLI request.

AMEX uses whatever last SP they did, which is likely 60 days or so in the past. That is the main reason the shorthand 61 days is regurgitated as advice, because it gives AMEX a chance to take another SP after your application HP. They also do not use the HP, so if no SP was done recently, they might use a SP from before your app.

The other factor in your file is you have two AMEX, the charger and the revolver, correct? This means half of all your cards are AMEX and contribute to their internal scoring method. That should carry a lot of weight.

An AZEO method would only possibly have an influence on an AMEX 3X CLI request if it is your first ever AMEX, and you had already been diligent about maintaining AZEO every day for three months since you cannot predict the SP timing.

Or, you could just use the AMEX regularly and pay on time. That has a stronger influence on an AMEX CLI than any two point gain ( and low swipe value indication ) that comes from AZEO.

In case it is not clear, I think AZEO is a waste of time.

And I also oredict you won’t have any issues getting your first 3X CLI, since that is probably from $1k to $3k.

---

^^^^^ This. 

Here are some sample data points.  For my first AX CLI this past week (after ~65 days), I went from 10K to 22K (all I requested) with a 717 EX score, 15 points lower than my score when Amex issued me the card.  Usage of the card had been modest (a ~$700 peak in the first two months, paid in full by the time the statement cut).