Absolute best utilization with ONE credit card

[FirstAscent]

I’ve read all about AZEO but that doesn’t apply to me since I only have one credit card. My statement date is coming up in about a week and I’m looking for the highest potential point gain. I have an $1800 CL and am currently at 52% util (reported). Last month I went from 92 to 52% and saw a 20-50 point gain across my reports. 

From what I’ve read I shouldn’t pay it off to a zero balance, should I leave $3, $30, something else? What do you think will offer me the best point potential? Thanks everyone!

[Zolomon]

I would pay it down to $90 (5%). I went from 44% to 5% on just one card and saw my points rise about 17 - 20 points across the board.

[HeavenOhio]

The general advice is that 8.9% on a single card will optimize one's score. But we've seen reports here of people being dinged for exceeding 5% or so. Because .00000001 will round up to the next whole number, maybe you want to aim for 4.9% or below.

Of course, if you're not applying for important credit, a handful of points aren't going to kill you. This would give you the chance to experiment a little to see what your score will do if you shift your reported balance up or down a bit.

[Anonymous]

---

@FirstAscent

From what I’ve read I shouldn’t pay it off to a zero balance, should I leave $3, $30, something else? What do you think will offer me the best point potential? Thanks everyone!

---

What's important to understand here is that percentage thresholds exist.  If a threshold isn't crossed, FICO scoring won't be impacted.  You could pay your card down from $170 to $150 and see a 20 point gain from that $20 paydown, but it doesn't mean you're getting a point per dollar; it means that you crossed the 8.9% threshold.  Conversely, it's possible that you could then pay down from $150 to $10, a $140 pay down that's 7X as much as your previous $20 paydown, and you'd see a zero point gain all because you didn't cross a threshold.

That being said, it's very rare that anyone reports seeing a better score when going with an amount greater than a $5-$20 reported balance.  If you go with small number like that, you can just about assure yourself that you're getting maximum FICO score benefit over going with a higher amount.

[SouthJamaica]

---

@FirstAscentwrote:

I’ve read all about AZEO but that doesn’t apply to me since I only have one credit card. My statement date is coming up in about a week and I’m looking for the highest potential point gain. I have an $1800 CL and am currently at 52% util (reported). Last month I went from 92 to 52% and saw a 20-50 point gain across my reports. 

From what I’ve read I shouldn’t pay it off to a zero balance, should I leave $3, $30, something else? What do you think will offer me the best point potential? Thanks everyone!

---

I don't think any of us really know the answer to your question, so I would appreciate if you would conduct this experiment:

Let it report at $30 one month, and zero another month, and compare.

[Anonymous]

My guess would be with $30 reporting verses $0 (no revolving credit use) the OP would see around a 8-10 point score increase.

For those going from AZEO on 3+ cards to 0 with reported balances, we typically see a 15-20 point drop.  That's with 33% or less cards reporting balances.  Since the OP would be at 100% of cards reporting balances, he'd have a penalty imposed which would cut into the typical AZEO gain seen on files with 3+ cards.  I happen to think this would grab away about half his, which is why I estimate a score gain of 8-10 points.  Just a guess here, of course, so it would be cool to see the OP actually test it out as SJ suggests to know for sure.

[FirstAscent]

Thanks everyone for your input. I’m definitely willing to do some experimenting with it, but hoping to start off with the greatest point gain. But I guess the only way to really find that out is to do some testing. I think to start I’ll shoot for 1% then maybe increase 1% next time. Too bad I have to wait a month in between haha.

[SouthJamaica]

---

@FirstAscentwrote:

Thanks everyone for your input. I’m definitely willing to do some experimenting with it, but hoping to start off with the greatest point gain. But I guess the only way to really find that out is to do some testing. I think to start I’ll shoot for 1% then maybe increase 1% next time. Too bad I have to wait a month in between haha.

---

My hunch is that

- the lowest score will be when  you report zero

- you'll see a good gain when you go 1% or so

- once you go up from there you'll see either no changes with some increments and slight decreases with others

- if you dare to go to 30% you'll get smacked

But if you don't want to wait around for all those monthly statements, just try zero balance and 1%... those are the key ones for us.

 See the thing is, none of us except you are cool enough to have just one card, hence the reason for our ignorance on this subject

[FirstAscent]

Yeah I think I’m gonna do around 1% or like 0.8% haha I’ll get it as close as I can.

And haha, well I don’t want to be in the cool one card club. I just didn’t want secure cards and was holding out for my scores to get better. My one card now was a secured card but graduated to unsecured.

I think my statement cuts in the 7th or 9th, so soon I’ll know what kind of increase 52 to 1% gives me.

[Anonymous]

---

@FirstAscent
Yeah I think I’m gonna do around 1% or like 0.8% haha I’ll get it as close as I can.

---

Remember that any non-zero percentage is always going to be rounded up to 1% as long as the dollar value isn't too small ($5 is sufficient).  A $5 reported balance may only be something like .07% utilization depending on your limit, but that number rounds up to 1% and is scored FICO wise as 1% utilization.