Question about Credit cards and Score.....

[eparker]

I have 5 active credit cards, all in good standing.  Credit limits are not very large, $800, $600, $500, $1500, and $2400.  My question is, I will be able to pay off four of them very quickly. 

What kind of score increase could I expect after paying off 4 of 5 cards.  JUST CURIOUS......

Thanks.....

[Lel]

What are the balances on the cards?

There's no way to predict exactly how much your score will change, since there are several factors that go into your score besides your credit card balances.  But if you go from 5 credit cards reporting to just one, and your utilization goes from, say, 80% to 8%, then you should see a decent increase in your score.

[Anonymous]

Hi eparker,

If you pulled your reports and scores from this site, you can use the simulator to estimate your score impact.

Whatever it is, and it wil vary depending on your current utilization, number of accounts reporting a balance and so forth, it is a very very good move! 

Now, moving forward, the general consensus is to keep a zero balance reporting on all but one card, and let that one card report a less than 9% balance before PIFing.  You'll avoid paying interest and be very FICO-wise.

Congrats on choosing to pay down those cards - you could always spend your available cash on chocolates or shoes or ...billiards, I guess.  You're putting it in a good spot.

[RobertEG]

With 5 active credit cards, here would be my advice.

Dont focus on your indiv card credit limits.  FICO does not score CL's, it scores % util of your posted balance against each CL

Half of your score under % util is based on overall % util, so that is your first focus.

The other half of % util scoring is based on the combined impact of indiv card util.  That is the % utill of each indiv card, plus the number of cards, at any point, who show any blance.  So indivd  % util, with 5 cards, would be 6 subfactors, each scoring at 1/6 of  the remainiing 50%.