OP I think your scores are moving because of all the changes in accounts.
You had 1 or 2 auto loans for years with no credit cards until recently.
The auto loans are now paid off / zero.
There are two new credit cards in the last couple months, the third has not yet reported.
There is no meaningful advice at the moment about utilization. As noted, in six months when these three cards have stabilized history, then you can start watching / managing with utilization. Until then, the new account aging is the bigger factor.
When all three bureaus are closer to each other, that will indicate more stability. 50 point difference between bureau on the same model is an indication of lots of noise.
You had 1 or 2 auto loans for years with no credit cards until recently.
The auto loans are now paid off / zero.
There are two new credit cards in the last couple months, the third has not yet reported.
There is no meaningful advice at the moment about utilization. As noted, in six months when these three cards have stabilized history, then you can start watching / managing with utilization. Until then, the new account aging is the bigger factor.
When all three bureaus are closer to each other, that will indicate more stability. 50 point difference between bureau on the same model is an indication of lots of noise.
@Anonymouswrote:Hey SJ. Can you describe further the changes you saw in total utilization and the connected score changes?
Assuming that the score changes really owed to CC balances and not to anything else, it would make me wonder whether some FICO models look at the raw dollar value of debt and not only the utilization percent. If so, your profile would exhibit changes going to from 0.1% to 8.3% (say) since the dollar value of your debt would be going from $500 to 43k -- whereas a guy with a 10k total limit would always have a fairly small dollar value (< $899).
Again, I am assuming you'd ruled out individual util as a factor, and wonky things like a credit card with a 50k limit or a charge card or an AU card (and other entirely unrelated factors like accounts falling off and affecting age, number of cards reporting a balance, etc.).
When I have all accounts at 28% or less, and number of accounts reporting balances remains constant, my FICO 8's with move within a range of around 30 points as my overall revolving utilization moves from 1/2% to 8.9%.
I can rule out any 50k limit cards since I don't have one, and I can rule out charge cards since the only one I had didn't report, and I've never had an AU card.
I can't rule out individual utilization changes in the 0 to 28% range. Maybe those are part of the equation, maybe they're not.
SJ - I suspect the primary factors influencing your scores are related to new and recently opened accounts. There are strong indications that thresholds may exist at 3 month, 6 month and 12 months for recently opened accounts. New account openings and recently opened account aging are likely causing score fluctuations.
You may also be seeing some score shifts due to inquiry aging. I know that 3 months is an inquiry aging milestone for VantageScore. Based on the below score shifts I experienced, it appears 3 months might be a threshold for inquiries with Fico 8 as well.
@Thomas_Thumbwrote:SJ - I suspect the primary factors influencing your scores are related to new and recently opened accounts. There are strong indications that thresholds may exist at 3 month, 6 month and 12 months for recently opened accounts. New account openings and recently opened account aging are likely causing score fluctuations.
You may also be seeing some score shifts due to inquiry aging. I know that 3 months is an inquiry aging milestone for VantageScore. Based on the below score shifts I experienced, it appears 3 months might be a threshold for inquiries with Fico 8 as well.
You're entitled to have that opinion, but I monitor my FICO 8 scores on a daily basis, and it is clear that there is a major swing in my scores as I move between 1/2 % and 8.9% overall revolving utilization.
@Anonymouswrote:
I was thinking of keeping my three individual cards around 2.9% ult instead of AZEO. What are your opinions?
You will do better if you have 2 of the 3 cards reporting a zero balance.
@Thomas_Thumbwrote:
@SouthJamaicawrote:
@Thomas_Thumbwrote:SJ - I suspect the primary factors influencing your scores are related to new and recently opened accounts. There are strong indications that thresholds may exist at 3 month, 6 month and 12 months for recently opened accounts. New account openings and recently opened account aging are likely causing score fluctuations.
You're entitled to have that opinion, but I monitor my FICO 8 scores on a daily basis, and it is clear that there is a major swing in my scores as I move between 1/2 % and 8.9% overall revolving utilization.
In your testing with a fixed number of cards reporting balances are the same cards reporting for each data point? That would help isolate variables. Also, as mentioned above, individual card utilizations are worth considering. Perhaps you could offer up a table something like the below. This would help in looking for patterns. It would be interesting to see groups of three data points such as:
a. Group A - Individual card max UT below 9% with three different AG UT data points
b. Group B - Individual card max UT in the 9% to under 19% range with three different AG UT data points
c. Group C - Individual card max UT in the 19% to under 29% range with three different AG UT data points
If one of the three AG UT data points was essentially the same (say around 3%) for groups A, B and C that may shed some light on influence of individual card UT.
Month/day ********** ********** ********** ********** ********** ********** ********** Credit score AG UT% # cards reporting Total # cards Card #1 name Card #1 UT% Card # 2 name Card #2 UT% Card #3 name Card #3 UT % Card #4 Card #4 UT% Card # 5 Card #5 UT% Card # 6 Card #6 UT% Card #7 Card #7 UT%
For someone who abhors micromanagement you're sure giving me an awful lot of homework there 
No need to micromanage and I wouldn't try to impose that on you .
Thought you might already have this if you keep daily records. It's more of an exercise of organizing data into blocks in hopes of isolating impact of factors. However, it is a lot of work and very few people keep detailed daily records. If your scores are sometimes higher at lowest aggregate UT levels and sometimes higher at increased UT levels then something else is influencing the shift in score.
For example, could higher utilization levels on recently opened cards/accounts be treated more harshly than similar utilization levels on established accounts? It's hard to say what else might be at play even when data is segregating into groups or controlled trials are conducted.