Confirm My Assumption - Total Avail Credit and Util

[hawkeye33]

From what I've read here, FICO score factors in total available revolving credit (TAC) only in respect to util, so if TAC increases and balances stay the same, score may rise modestly, but there is not an inherent bump in score just due to the fact that some CCCs have seen you as low enough risk to give you additional credit (and may, in fact, lower your score initially).

I recently received a Cap One card with CL of $3000. Prior to this, my only revolving TLs were Credit One ($400 CL) and Orchard ($420 CL). Both of these prior cards were opened in May 2008.

So, I now have TAC of $3820 and total balances of $22 at present (I'm not worried about util as I PIF every month). I expect some negative impact of the new account from what I've read on the forums, but can anyone say if there's any positive impact in the fact that TAC is now more than 4.5 times what it was before the new card?

Thanks.

[haulingthescoreup]

Not absolutely where you're going here, but here's the definition of util:

total of balances reported
_____________________

total of credit limits given -- not what's available; what's extended


So it doesn't matter what's available; you're trying to figure out what what've used vs. what was originally there available to be used.

Message Edited by haulingthescoreup on 03-31-2009 08:30 PM

[PayingTheBills]

It might help you under a manual review, but your FICO score doesn't care if your total CL is $100 or $1,000,000 when it comes to your revolving accounts.  It cares that you pay on time and what percentage of total CL is being utilized.

There is some debate about whether there is a preferable number of CC's to have (many here say 3-4), and if you should add a retail/gas card to the mix, etc, so perhaps adding a third CC will boost your scores enough to offset the reduced AAoA and ding for "new credit."

Message Edited by PayingTheBills on 04-01-2009 12:35 AM

[smallfry]

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@PayingTheBills wrote:

It might help you under a manual review, but your FICO score doesn't care if your total CL is $100 or $1,000,000 when it comes to your revolving accounts.  It cares that you pay on time and what percentage of total CL is being utilized.

There is some debate about whether there is a preferable number of CC's to have (many here say 3-4), and if you should add a retail/gas card to the mix, etc, so perhaps adding a third CC will boost your scores enough to offset the reduced AAoA and ding for "new credit."

Message Edited by PayingTheBills on 04-01-2009 12:35 AM

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I might be totally off base here but I think that I read that the new scoring system might actually reward higher available credit. I don't know if it would apply in the OP's case though.