Multiple balances on multiple cards?

[Anonymous]

Why should we only have one card reporting a balance when the statements cut? I was thinking of having my Discover report a 2% utilization and my AMEX report a 2-3% utilization. Is this bad to have it report this way or should I have either Discover or Amex report 4-5% and leave the other one reporting a balance of 0? Thanks.

[Revelate]

In addition to revolving utillization, the FICO algorithm also scores the number of revolving tradelines with balance.

In general anecdotally we've found that less than half your revolving tradelines isn't necessarily a penalty (though this may vary for some folks) but the easiest albeit the most micromanagy method of accomplishing it is to simply have the one card report a balance.

It doesn't reallly matter much if your'e not applying for anything, but leaving a balance on multiple cards can be a negative compared to only having one report a balance which is about as good as it gets for FICO scoring.

[gdale6]

The FICO gurus say that the reporting of 1 card with 1-9% utilization of its credit line produce the highest possible score. If your not apping for anything it doesnt really matter if you let 2 report or not.