Equifax score rose only slightly with 2 large payments

[Anonymous]

So, I started at $16,100 out of 22300 (72% overall utilization) and made two payments to two different credit cards to get down to $12,092 (54% overall utilization). The reports were sent in to equifax on the same day. My score only went up 2 points total. I looked through my FICO history and i saw where equifax scores occasionally rose with increases in balance. I went from 637 to 639.

What gives? I'm going to continue making large payments each month so that I get the entire balance down to less than 9% overal utilization within 4 months. Seems like a very small bump compared to the fairly significant decrease in utilization. 

I don't understand the algorithm. Can someone explain this so I do?

[Anonymous]

List ALL your credit cards, credit limits, and balances.

I've seen very anecdotal evidence that one utilization tier is 50-84%, so paying from 72% to 54% means staying in the same utilization tier, but this is pure anecdotal evidence.  An old post from 2009 from a moderator here says the same thing but maybe not in regards to FICO08: http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Credit-Cards/Credit-Utilization-Ratio-applies-to-all-cards-combined-...

Be aware that FICO scores two different parameters for utilization:  overall average utilization (aggregate) as well as utilization per trade line.  Posting your credit limits and balances will help us figure it out.

[Anonymous]

BOA                        0/5000

Frontier Barclay      3339/3500

Apple Rewards       302/3300

Discover IT             195/2300

Cap1 Venture1        8154/9250

Lowes/Sync             0/300

My numbers were slightly off. I started at $16,100 out of 23650 (68% uti) and ended up at 11990/23650 (slightly over 50%). I just got these numbers off my last statements. I clearly didn't remember all of the balances from memory in my first post. 

The apple rewards and discover each had payments over $2000 for a total decrease of $4,110.00. Score went from 637 to 639.

After reading your post I would venture to guess that perhaps the high util on the cap1 and frontier barclaycard may be keeping the score down.

[Anonymous]

95.4% - barclay
88.2% - lowes

These two are both above the 85% where cards are considered "maxed out".  As long as you have ONE maxed out card (over 85% utilization), your scores will stay low.

Some people who max out just ONE card see a 40 point drop on FICO.  Maxing out more than one card can drop it even more.

Lower both of these under 84% and you'll see a small boost again.

To get maximum FICO boost you have to pay ALL your cards down to 0% except for ONE card which reports 1-9% but not zero.

[Anonymous]

Ok. I can understand that. 

I couldn't quite wrap my head around it until now.

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

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My numbers were slightly off. I started at $16,100 out of 23650 (68% uti) and ended up at 11990/23650 (slightly over 50%). I just got these numbers off my last statements. I clearly didn't remember all of the balances from memory in my first post. 

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While I agree with the general point that ABC was making above, I believe the thresholds are at 49% and 69%, so if you went from 68% to 50% you were literally just on the cusp of passing a break point but actually just paid down a large amount while still in the same utilization range.  The two maxed out lines as suggested above are also holding back your score.  I'd work on getting everything at 48.9% or below ASAP, then taking individual lines down below 29% and 9% ASAP after that.