Macy's - impact of putting furniture on card

[chasmith]

Macy's doesn't report a credit line, so I'm wondering about the score impact of putting some furniture on the account (0% offer).

If I put a large purchase on the card, I believe this will show the card 100% utilized, add the card balance to my other credit lines in calculating total utilization, is this correct?

Currently they report no "high balance", is this likely to set a "high water mark" that will be used in place of credit limit and help utilization after I pay the balance down?

Or is this going to just be excluded from utilization calculations all together?

[llecs]

A new TL will report and it will be excluded from utilization because it won't report a limit (or high balance). In their hayday before they made the change last year, if you bought furniture, EX and EQ would report a CL. This CL was assigned by Macys and would reflect a CL that wasn't too much more above the total of the furniture you bought. I bought a matress, for example, for $1900 and they gave a CL of $2500. Once you paid it off, then the CL would go to $0 and it would forever be removed. Unfortunately they made the change they did and it no longer matters (which is good when you first buy it I suppose). And IIRC, it seems like TU reported only the "high balance" then and I recall having higher util on TU because of that. In any case, none of this matters anymore. I continued to pay on the Spec. Event acct after Macys made the change and they had removed the high balance and CLs due to that change.

As a side note, they added a third TL after I bought my mattress (Macys store + Macys Spec. Event (Mattress) + Macys Unknown added TL). Others have reported the same from time to time. It always showed $0 balance with a $0 limit. I called them about it and they said it was added in error and offered to remove it. I declined and it still reports as open and should help my history overall in the long-run. FYI.

Keep us posted on how it reports. I'm thinking about doing the same once again very soon. Just moved.

[chasmith]

Thanks ilecs,

Macy';s is strange, they report the card twice, and as we've all noted they no longer report a credit limit, although this is shown as a revolving account.  Are you saying that if I charge furniture on the existing card it will spawn a new TL?

[llecs]

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@chasmith wrote:

Are you saying that if I charge furniture on the existing card it will spawn a new TL?

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Yes, if you use their financing promotion. There's also a chance they may add two new TLs as opposed to one, but the second would be in error and you can easily get them to remove it if it happens. Now you can use your store card for new furniture, but you won't get the 0% deal.

Oh...forgot to mention. When I had a balance on the store TL and the furniture TL, they would not let me pay down the balance on the 0% deal unless I PIF the store card balance first. They cited the new CC Law as a reason saying the law required them to apply all but the minimum payment to the TL with the highest APR. If you only pay the minimum on the furniture TL, you will not pay off the furniture account inside the allotted time (2 yrs, 1 yrs, whatever)...or at least when I had it. I was approaching the end of the financing period (about 3-4 months out at the time) and wanted to PIF and be done with it. They wouldn't let me. I had to pay off the store card first.