Overall utilization

[Anonymous]

So my overall util went from 49.07% to 48.87% today, with no other changes showing. On the TU Vantagescore that I see that updates daily, my score went up 39 points overnight from this change (597 to 636). Does Vantage weigh this marker heavier than FICO? Is this a normal amount for crossing that threshold?

[expatCanuck]

Hard to believe that it's solely the small utilization change.

Has anything else beneficial happened recently?  New accounts?  An account paid to zero?  Baddies drop?  Year-old INQs?

Often, a score change doesn't reflect what's stated in an alert.  For example, earlier this year, I received an alert that a balance had (significantly) dropped, and yet my score did too.  In hindsight, it was almost certainly the delayed result of recent inquiries.

[Anonymous]

No, none of that changed over the one day (At least that I can find by inspecting my whole report compared to the day prior). Their simulator prior to this had even told me the score would go up about 30 points when I put in just paying off $20 of debt to get it under the 49% mark. I am wondering if my FICO score will see any sort of notable change as well. My FICO has been consistently about 50 points higher than the Vantage scores though for the last month or two...

[expatCanuck]

Huh.  So perhaps 49% is that signficant a threshold for that score.  I recall reading that things weren't quite that cut & dry for the FICO score.  I leave it to contributors more learned than I to opine.

Edited to add:

One last thought.  The simulator results may not present a complete picture.  Another example: I know that if, on my profile, I simulate paying down debt by a token amount for 12 months, there'll be no significant score change -- a nominal 10-15 points.  But if I pay even a lesser amount for 13 months, it's a 25-point increase.  But that's not because of the payments -- it's because a  7-year-old 30-day-late will fall off my report.

[HeavenOhio]

The conventional wisdom is that 8.9%, 28.9%, 48.9%, 68.9%, and 88.9% are thresholds. 8.9% and 88.9% are likely to make a difference for just about everyone. The ones in the middle would depend on one's profile. I'd say that there was a good chance that the OP crossed a threshold that's significant to his profile. (28.9% is considered responsible borrowing, so it's one to keep in mind whether it affects your score or not.)

I don't know much about VantageScore, but I think it uses more of a sliding scale than thresholds. Someone else would have to chime in on that one.

[Anonymous]

Since practically no one uses Vantage scoring, I wouldn't spend much time trying to figure it out.

[Anonymous]

I'd like to see what happens to your FICO scores (not VS 3.0) with this utilization change.  

I do think it's perfectly feasible that your score could change that much.  You figure utilization makes up 30% of your score and aggregate revolving utilization is King to individual utilization, installment loan utilization, etc.  That being said, of someone goes from perfect (say, 1%) aggregate utilization to maxed out aggregate utilization, most people report a loss of somewhere around 100 points.  Could be 70.  Could be 120.  But, I'd say 100 is a good ballpark figure.  Certainly, it's profile-dependent.  Anyway, those 100 points are divided up from crossing different thresholds.  As others have said, profile can influence which thresholds result in the greatest (and least) point changes when crossed.  Therefore, it's possible that ~30 points could be the impact of crossing any given threshold on a specific profile. 

[Anonymous]

I will get a FICO update on the 2nd, so I will update with how much that changed in comparison. Nothing else should change before then that I am aware of.