My score dropped by 40pts, where did I go wrong?

[alexsmith]

So about a year ago, I had a score around 670. I spent all year making on time payments and paying off the statement balance while staying below 30% utilization on my credit card. I got my score up to like 716. This past month, I decided to go over 30% utilization buy using a airline/travel expense on the CC and then I just did the minimum payment of $40 since I’m in the 0% APR window. Is that basically what got me?

[Jnbmom]

First and most important where are you getting your scores from ? What is your total limits on all your cards? If your utilization went up on particular card and your overall utilization went up then yes I can see a point drop depending on your overall utilization.

[4sallypat]

What is your total overall utilization ?

If it's one card and you went over 30% then yes, it's very possible.

[pizzadude]

Agree if this is your only open revolving account then it could be due to the increased utilization.

[FlaDude]

The good news is that your scores should recover as soon as the utilization goes back to where it was.

[Thomas_Thumb]

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@alexsmith wrote:

So about a year ago, I had a score around 670. I spent all year making on time payments and paying off the statement balance while staying below 30% utilization on my credit card. I got my score up to like 716. This past month, I decided to go over 30% utilization buy using a airline/travel expense on the CC and then I just did the minimum payment of $40 since I’m in the 0% APR window. Is that basically what got me?

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No, that by itself should not cause a 40 point drop. There are individual card utilization thresholds at 29% and 49%. The card crossing above 30% might cost 10 points, 15 at most.

There are also independent penalties for increased aggregate revolving utilization. You don't mention your before/after aggregate UT. That could account for another 10 point drop, possibly more.

If you only have one card, going from under 10% to over 30% utilization on a single card might drop score 40 points. Why? In that case the AG UT penalty is higher due to it also going above 29%. Having more than one card moderates the change in aggregate utilization due to high UT on a single card.

Side note: You mention going over 30% but did the card go over 50% UT as well?

[SouthJamaica]

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@alexsmith wrote:

So about a year ago, I had a score around 670. I spent all year making on time payments and paying off the statement balance while staying below 30% utilization on my credit card. I got my score up to like 716. This past month, I decided to go over 30% utilization buy using a airline/travel expense on the CC and then I just did the minimum payment of $40 since I’m in the 0% APR window. Is that basically what got me?

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Possibly.

We would need to know

-where you're getting your scores from and how you're getting them

-what your limits and reported balances are

If a credit card account reports at a balance of 30% or greater, you would be getting a significant penalty.

[RedKhaos]

I'm going to take a wild guess this was a Credit Wise Vantage 3.0 score from Transunion.

If so then just a normal day from ol' reliable vantage 3.0. (added /s)