Massive jump in FICO score?

[Anonymous]

First time poster, short-time lurker.

I started watching my FICO score this past January when I began getting it for free through some credit cards. It dipped to 717 when I opened an auto loan in January, then I consolidated high-rate credit cards into a 401k loan (least bad option) which caused my FICO score to rise to 781-ish, where it floated all year long, until last month. In October I balance transferred a 0% APR that was expiring from one card to another, and my FICO jumped in the last few weeks to 815 - but my utilization didn't change at all.

What would cause that FICO jump?

[Anonymous]

I'm assuming by "utilization didn't change" you're referring to overall utilization.  Did you BT the amount from a lower-limit card to a higher-limit card?  If so, you would have dropped the utilization of the "from" card to zero and raised the "to" card to a lower utilization than the "from" card before the BT, which could result in a bump.