So I opened my first ever card in January (Discover IT), and after six months got an official Transunion score of 771. The number really surprised me so I thought I would take a shot at the Chase Sapphire Preferred, but was denied because my credit history was too short. Score took a small hit for the inquiry down to 767, which was no big deal.
Took a trip to Europe in August, so I wanted to grab a card with a VISA brand with no international fees (since termporarily the Chase wasn't an optinon), so I applied for the BoA Travel Rewards card in July and was approved with a $1500 CL. I figured the European trip would be a great way to knock out the $1000 sign up bonus, and was able to use it for about 90% of my purchases while there. As I already had all of my money in the bank that I intended to spend on that trip, I made it a point to almost immediately pay off the fees once they were posted (I don't think I ever let the number get above $200 before I payed off the balance in full), and I made sure it was payed down to around $50 before the card reported, meanwhile not using the Discover card whatsoever. I never went above 30% and was paying off every 2-3 days or so, but managed to spend a little over $800 during my three week trip, which gave me my bonus when combined with the bit I had spent on the card the month before I left.
Meanwhile, in August after my first BoA report was added to my credit report, my score remained static at 767, and I figured it would be beneficial to get one more card in order to utilize the three card FICO gardening for a while so I can eventually apply for the Chase card sometime next summer before I travel again. So I applied for the AMEX BCE card and was just approved on Thursday.
Anyways, this morning I got my report, and the TU had tanked from 767 to 733! Although it's not a terrible score or anything like that, that's a rather substancial difference, especially in regards to the credit brackets, as I've technically dropped down from "excellent" to "good". Now I expected to go down another 4-5 points from the hard inquiry, but 30+ points seems rather excessive, and I'm trying to figure out how that happened. I've never missed a payment, and have always reported less than 30% (I've actually never even had more than 30% running at any time), and I'm usually below 9% when the statement reports.
I've been trying to figure it out, but the only thing really new is the BoA card, and the Amex inquiry. Would a lot of international spending cause the score to plumit like it did? Also, as I was traveling my average monthly spending went to about 300% of my average, but I would pay everything off in full within a day or two of it posting, except for the small lingering balance I left for the BoA statement report in order to show utilization. Would that adversely affect my FICO, as I don't normally spend money that quickly even though I was paying off the balance almost immediately? Or do they view international spending as a higher risk?
I expected to maybe drop into the 750s after both inquiries, as I meticulously monitored my spending and didn't expect to take a hit from that, but a 34 point drop is bit more severe than I had anticipated. I've browsed the forum a bit, but am still scratching my head.
Where did I mess up?
