What were your balances before the score decreases? If you increased the number of positive balances and had higher balances, that's generally enough to ding your score. The Experian FICO 8 has a reputation for being a little more patient about this kind of stuff. 
@Caught750 wrote:
I’m fairly certain the number of accounts reporting stayed the same or may have increased by one. The amounts did increase but I’m not positive what they were as I hadn’t been tracking them closely since I just PIF. I don’t understand the drop since I haven’t crossed anything that’s discussed a “threshold” here (sub 8.9% aggregate, sub 28.9% single card, less than 1/3 of accounts).
We don't know everything there is to know about thresholds. We are pretty sure overall should be kept at 9% or less and individual should be kept at 28% or less, but there are sometimes moves based on utilization below those numbers. I certainly have detected, in my own profile, that there is a scoring difference in FICO 8 between 9% overall utilization and 1%.
@HeavenOhio wrote:Depending on the score, anytime you have more than one card/account with a balance, there's potential for a decrease.
Also, there are some who report dings before reaching 8.9%/28.9%. It's possible that those dings may come due to "balances too high" or "amounts owed too high." I get both of those reason codes on one of my scores despite the fact that I'm only reporting $400 on a single card with a 24k limit. The one lone FICO with those two reasons is two points lower than it was with a $200 balance on a single card with a 7k limit.
Which score?
EX FICO 2 / 3 are the only ones I've anything like that on and that was for a 27k balance hanging out on a 28k HELOC or so.
@Caught750 wrote:
Silliness I tell ya. Follow the rules, as we understand them, and still get dinged.
With all the really nice cards you have, what is the point of worrying about a few points here? Your main weighting is now internal score, and I can't imagine many other cards need to be apped.
AR is indeed giving you excellent rewards, and that seems worth a few points if you dont want to pre-pay before month end.
