A little history first: Back when I first came to these boards in 2007 through my extremely active days 2010, FICO scores 02, 04 and 05 ruled FICO land. FICO 08 was just starting to gain some traction. AZEO is a very big deal on what we now call the "mortgage scores."
I continue to hear about AZEO for FICO 08. I, too, expected AZEO to be relevant on 08 when I came back to the boards. I see someone post about it everyday, encouraging folks to practice AZEO. I have also read from a few that AZEO isn't a very big deal on 08. I, being who I am, needed to figure it out for myself, so I embarked upon this little experiment of my own. I have the Experian CMS which gives my EX FICO daily and my other scores on a monthly basis. I also have ScoreWatch that gives me alerts and scores on EQ. I have nothing to monitor TU FICO on a daily basis. CK to monitor activity only.
Here are the data points on my reports that I plotted as I moved between AZEO, AZE2 and AZE3.
On 12/14/21, My scores were: EX--803, EQ--806 and TU 785. I had a new card that reported a balance, and Discover had gone all caddywampus on me. I'd changed my due date, but the old due date was still showing, so I paid to $0 and made a small charge a week or so later. That charge reported on the statement balance. My daily driver card was also reporting its statement balance. Overall utilization was 14%. Individual cards were at 36.3%, 33.6% and 2%.
On 12/17/21, my scores were: EX--813, EQ--806, TU 785. This is with two cards reporting balances (AZE2). I paid the big balance, highest utilization card to $0 and let the other two stand pat. My overall utilization was 11%. Individual utilization was 33.6% and 2%. EX went up 10 points that day to 813, while the other two remained with AZE2. In all fairness, I'm not 100% sure what TU did.
On 12/31/21, my scores were: EX--813, EQ--809 and TU--790. My guess is that EQ and TU liked AZE2 better than AZE3, thus the three and five point respective jumps. My new FNBO card reported its balance, along with CFU. Overall utilization went from 11% to 6%, with individual at 33.6% and 9.1%.
January was pretty silent until I achieved an unexpected AZEO reporting on 1/22/22. EQ had dropped another three points along the way for some unknown reason. So, my scores after the AZEO reporting were: EX--813, EQ--809 (up from 806) and TU--795. Overall utilization was 6% and individual utilization was 28.96%. I think that was a big factor in lack of movement in the scores. After this, I decided that I would be purposeful in understanding how my scores would react to AZEO at under 9% individual utilization. I asked DW not to use our CFU between 1/26 and 2/2, as we have plenty of other cards to use that had already reported their statement balances to the CRAs.
So, on 1/31/22, I paid CFU to $0 and allowed my EDP to report a balance at 8% individual utilization and 2% overall. Prior to CFU reporting $0, both reported for a day on 1/31/22. I lost one FICO on EX and dropped to 812. The next day, 2/1/22, something happened that I didn't think possible--EX updated twice on the same day. The first report gave me back two points to 814. Later that day, CFU reported a $0 balance to EX and my score jumped to 821. I was anxiously awaiting TU and EQ to catch up with their reporting.
In the meantime, DW, whose FICO 08 EX score is sitting at 848 just can't be bothered to put up with my experiment charged $125 on the card on 2/1/22. The statement closed on 2/2/22 and reported that balance on all three reports today! UUUUUUUUGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!
My current scores with AZE2 as of today are: EX--821, EQ--811 and TU 791. Overall utilization is 2%. Individual utilization is at 8% and .5% respectively.
Interestingly, TU liked me at AZEO and 6% overall and 29% individual utilization better than they like me at AZE2 at 2% overall. EQ likes me a little better at my current AZE2 state than they did at AZEO with higher individual utilization and EX is unfazed by the change. It did seem to love AZEO a little more than the other two did initially.
I have had some unexpected obligations come up this month that might require me to carry balances across a couple of cards for a month or two, so I may not complete this experiment this month. We shall see. I wanted to get this out here while it is fresh in my mind and provide the current DP for my little experiment.
I'll update this thread when new DP arise.
Eight open credit cards, two loans and a HELOC.
Looking forward to your experiences.
Was the FNBO card recently opened, so that was the moment that card was first reported as a new account?
It's percentage based.
The reason AZEO has survived even in this day of ever expanding credit portfolios (seemingly, I know I still have far more revolvers than I need let alone use by any rational measure... hell Discover told me they were going to close my account and they didn't even without my swiping the stupid thing) is it works regardless of credit profile or scorecard.
Advice needs to be uncomplicated, some messy if then else conditional when it comes to credit scoring isn't something we can just tell someone who finds this forum trying to optimize their credit. AZEO is and works for everyone, for all that I can still get to 4 or more depending on bureau on FICO 8 without seeing a ding... or that was true before I got a silly ding that I'm being lazy about cleaning up but I didn't notice differences in my old data points: still 1/3 EQ and 1/2 TU/EX in my experience for the ratios of revolving accounts before dings on FICO 8 at least for the scorecards I've been on.
