Maxed out Credit Card Observation

[Anonymous]

I had two cards "maxed out."  One at 93% and one at 92%.  Overall UTL was 73%.

Paid a decent chunk of one, dropping the individual UTL from 93% to 61% and overall UTL from 73% to 63%.

The results:

TU:  730 --> 745

EX:  731 --> 741

EQ:  725 --> 739

I just paid down the second maxed out card to roughly 65%.  I will report on how that goes.  

[Anonymous]

You had two heavily utilized cards (93% and 92%).  What was the individual U on the third highest card?

[Anonymous]

39%

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous

Paid a decent chunk of one, dropping the individual UTL from 93% to 61% and overall UTL from 73% to 63%.

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This means that you crossed both an individual card utilization threshold as well as an aggregate utilization threshold. 

Aggregate utilization is King to individual utilization.  While it's impossible to tell exactly how much you gained from each of these 2 variables since they happened at the same time, I'd ballpark guess that the aggregate utilization threshold crossing constitutes 2/3 of your gain, with the individual card utilization threshold crossing making up the other 1/3.  That being said, you can somewhat get an idea of what crossing the next threshold on both individual card utilization as well as aggregate utilization may bring you relative to your profile.

[Thomas_Thumb]

Yes and No.

One card crossed an individual threshold but, the other did not. I believe Fico scores individual based on the highest individual utilization - not how many are in each individual threshold category. One card remained above 90%. Given this assumption is valid, then the score increase is essentially due to the drop in aggregate utilization.

It's kind of like having multiple 90 day lates and a few 30 day lates. If one 90 day late is removed, no real score change. If they all are removed then 30 day lates become the controlling factor(s).

[Anonymous]

Hey BBS.  Our OP still had one card at > 91% when he gave us this scoring update.  If FICO 8 addresses individual U in a way similar to how it addresses derogs, it may not give an IU benefit until one gets all of one's cards beneath the relevant threshold.  (With two Day 60 and two Day 30 lates, for example, I think people here conjecture that you don't get a benefit until all your Day 60 lates are removed -- crossing your profile into a lower severity.)

My guess is that 100% of the benefit was total utilization -- but of course it's just a guess.  When our OP gets all of his cards at under 68.9%, he might see a nice IU bump, since he'll have crossed the 89% and 69% thresholds.

[Anonymous]

Looks like TT and I were saying the same thing (and drawing the same analogy with lates) at the exact same time.   :-)

[Anonymous]

Yes, you both are correct.  I completely overlooked the fact that the OP had two cards that were both at the maxed out level.  I somehow was only considering one with my response.  That's for keeping me honest guys!

[NRB525]

Congrats OP

Let us know when all cards each go below 50%. In June 2015 I saw quite a nice score increase when each of my accounts was finally below 50%.

[Anonymous]

Interesting, the 50% threshold appears to be very real.  I was only able to pay down my second maxed out card from 92% to 66% and my total UTL dropped from 63% to 51%, yet despite the 12 percentage point drop in UTL, none of the three credit scores budged.