The path from 800+ to 850?

[mnwarren]

Your Equifax FICO® score: 814
On March 10, 2012

Accounts 12
Accounts with balances 3
Accounts opened in past year 1
Recent inquiries 0
Collections 0
Public Records 0

Number of your accounts with a missed payment 0 accounts
Ratio of your revolving balances to your credit limits 1%
Your oldest account was opened 14 Years ago
Average age of your accounts 8 years

Your revolving accounts $1,025
Your mortgages None
Your installment loans $0

I'm trying to raise my FICO score to 850. I have decent credit, but regardless of how I use it, I can't get my score to rise much from 800ish.

I'm not sure if this is because I've never had a mortgage or because my AAoA is not high enough, or some other reason...? All of my credit lines are in the form of credit/charge cards. I have no vehicle or home loans currently, but have had vehicle loans in the past.

Anyone have some advice on how to proceed?

[my25reasons]

What have you done to try to get it to rise?

Is it not moving much because your credit profile hasn't changed much?

Your revolving credit amounts seem pretty low @ $1k. That could be a factor.

I'm sure you realize the importance of going from 800 to 850 is minimal, as they mean the same to lenders. It won't get you any better rates, since you're already considered at the top tier. But I understand the addiction to perfecting your credit score.

[mnwarren]

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@my25reasons wrote:

What have you done to try to get it to rise?

Is it not moving much because your credit profile hasn't changed much?

@Your revolving credit amounts seem pretty low @ $1k. That could be a factor.

I'm sure you realize the importance of going from 800 to 850 is minimal, as they mean the same to lenders. It won't get you any better rates, since you're already considered at the top tier. But I understand the addiction to perfecting your credit score.

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For the last year or so I've peen pre-paying my credit card bills before the statement closing date to artificially keep my revolving balances low.  In addition, I've tried to avoid anything that would cause hard pulls, though I have a couple of those that will fall off later on this year.

Also, since I have a couple charge cards that only report the high balance for the last year as the credit limit, I had the limit raised on a couple cards that are credit cards as opposed to charge cards to try and reduce my debt:credit ratio when I do happen to carry a balance.

I do realize that the difference between 800 and 850 is minimal, but as you mention, it's all in the challenge to achieve the perfect score.

[GregB]

It is not possible.

It also won't work to think of a "perfect score" as being 850.

Search posts if you want more info.

[llecs]

Ditto to the balances for your CCs. Also konw that this version of EQ FICO will ignore the balance and CL of your charge cards (like Amex or other no-preset limit CCs) when calculating utilization. However, your EQ FICO  will consider your overall balance in that card. There seems to be another component to the side outside of utilization that looks at your overall balances. Another thing to try is to get 2 of your 3 CCs that currently show a balance down to $0. FICO likes $0 balances (just not all $0 balances) and you might eek a few more points.

On the 850 goal, FICO does use the 300-850 range for branding purposes, but your EQ FICO doesn't go all the way up to 850. I don't know where the cutoff is, but it is a few points lower than 850.

ETA...and oh...I see you have an account less than a year old. You might see additional gains as it ages. I don't know how old it is, but you'll often see a ding when it reports with quite a few points returning inside of 6 months. Many have seen additional gains at a year old when the new account ages and the inquiry is no longer counted.

[GregB]

If you are referring to the EQ Beacon v5.0 as provided here, it is 818.

[Anonymous]

Maybe because you have 3 accounts with balances instead of just 1?

I thought anything AAOA of 6 years or over was a "high achiever's" AAOA?

[mnwarren]

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@llecs wrote:

Ditto to the balances for your CCs. Also konw that this version of EQ FICO will ignore the balance and CL of your charge cards (like Amex or other no-preset limit CCs) when calculating utilization. However, your EQ FICO  will consider your overall balance in that card. There seems to be another component to the side outside of utilization that looks at your overall balances. Another thing to try is to get 2 of your 3 CCs that currently show a balance down to $0. FICO likes $0 balances (just not all $0 balances) and you might eek a few more points.

On the 850 goal, FICO does use the 300-850 range for branding purposes, but your EQ FICO doesn't go all the way up to 850. I don't know where the cutoff is, but it is a few points lower than 850.

ETA...and oh...I see you have an account less than a year old. You might see additional gains as it ages. I don't know how old it is, but you'll often see a ding when it reports with quite a few points returning inside of 6 months. Many have seen additional gains at a year old when the new account ages and the inquiry is no longer counted.

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Thanks for the feedback.  I was under the impression that regarding utilization you never wanted to be too high, and never wanted to be $0.  I always tried to stay pretty low by pre-paying my credit card bills before the statement closing date, but I guess that isn't a great idea?

What should I try to aim for in terms of ideal utilization?

The new card was a card that I got for my new business (an LLC)  that reports to my personal credit report.  It has a CL of $60,000 but I try to keep that one paid down as well.  Fortunately, it is an actual credit card as opposed to a charge card so it reports a correct CL.

Thanks for the info on 850... I wasn't aware that it wasn't technically possible to reach that number.  I'll have to do some research and figure out what the deal is there.  For now, though, I'd be happy if my score at least moved from 814, hopefully in an upward direction.

[mnwarren]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Maybe because you have 3 accounts with balances instead of just 1?

I thought anything AAOA of 6 years or over was a "high achiever's" AAOA?

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I suppose it's possible that having the 3 accounts with balances hurts me, but there's not much I can do about that.  I have 3 credit cards, an AmEx, a personal Visa and a business Visa.  I try to put most of my charges on the Amex but there are recurring bills to companies who only take Visa, so I have a bit of a balance there, and of course business expenses go onto the busines Visa.

If the number of accounts with balances hurts me in such a way that my score won't rise, I guess there's not much I can do short of manually paying some bills that would otherwise be charged to my personal Visa, and trying to reduce my accounts with balances to just my AmEx and business Visa.

[mnwarren]

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@GregB wrote:

If you are referring to the EQ Beacon v5.0 as provided here, it is 818.

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Sorry, I'm not familiar with the term "EQ Beacon v5.0".  Is that the method used to derive Equifax's FICO score that MyFico provides?  If so, I may be closer than I thought?