Utilization Question - Single Card vs Multiple

[Anonymous]

How would you define "small" and "substantial" above though?  8 points vs 18 points for example?  Just curious.  I ask because in the grand scheme of things I don't believe it would really matter much.  Also in the example given above, the person would be moving from 25% of cards with a balance to 50% of cards with a balance, which could impose another small (say) 6 point penalty.  Using my from the hip numbers above, you'd only be looking at a 4 point variance between the two different scenarios.  Maybe my guesses are off here, but to me it doesn't seem like it would be significant.  No doubt the impact would be profile-specific. 

[Anonymous]

Ah gotcha! okay well, I might do that then. Move some balance over I mean to divide it up a bit

[Thomas_Thumb]

I suspect a clean profile with a solid Fico score could lose 20 to 30 points by maxing out (> 89% UT) a card even if aggregate UT is maintained under 9%. On the other hand, I would anticipate drop to be no more than 10 points for two cards in the 40% to 49% with the same below 9% aggregate utilization. Thus, net difference could certainly be 10 to 15 points - IMO.

I am not an advocate of transferring funds around. If I needed to carry a balance over an extended time frame, I'd manage future charges to create an equal split between two cards (or even three cards) as opposed to transferring funds. 

Side note: A profile with 4 cards likely won't see a Fico 8 score difference reporting a small balance on 1 vs 2 cards but, might see a 5 to 10 point drop on the older Fico mortgage models - particularly Equifax. In summary, reducing high utilization on a single card by focusing future charges on a secondary card is a good strategy for Fico 8 but, not as beneficial on the older Fico mortgage models.

[Anonymous]

Interesting.  I'd like to hear from someone that's got a clean file and taken a card from ideal to maxed out utilization to see what kind of score impact it had.  In fact, I'm going to start a thread on this subject, as I'd really like to know.

[Revelate]

If no one else has a clean file datapoint I'll simply charge next months HOA fee on my DCU Secured card.  $482/500 should sort that.

I only tested on dirty file.

[Anonymous]

That would be cool.  These are the times I wish I had self-initiated that CLD on my Cap One QS from 4k to a few hundred bucks back in 2017 so I'd have a card to play with for these things.

[Revelate]

Heh I will do you one credit geekier:

I opened up a minimum 200 CL secured card with Discover to go test that: and then they graduated me .

[Anonymous]

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@Revelate wrote:
Heh I will do you one credit geekier:

I opened up a minimum 200 CL secured card with Discover to go test that: and then they graduated me .

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You just did, or you already had one?

Impressive dedication!

[Anonymous]

So I have an update. 

Momentarily my score dropped 54 points but as the other cards updated the proper balances, it has now gone up 49 points. 

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

So I have an update. 

Momentarily my score dropped 54 points but as the other cards updated the proper balances, it has now gone up 49 points. 

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Can list out your before and after accounts with their balances/limits here?  Basically, what did your CR look like originally before the 49 point gain and what does it look like now with the 49 point gain?  The key pieces of information here would be aggregate utilization before/after, highest individual card utilization before/after and total number of accounts with a [non-zero] reported balance before/after.