@deepimpact97 wrote:Hi All,
Looking to get a bit of help/guidance as I am at a loss.
1 year ago I had a Fico score of 785, today it's 639. In that time I have not missed a single payment on any card. I've paid everything off in full prior to every statement date and do not carry balances. I have 3 cards, Amex Plat (15k) Apple Card (8k) and CSP (5k)
My company was acquired this year, and we no longer have corporate cards and I have to use my own. I travel for work a lot. This has had a massive impact on my CCU. Since January I've had about 60k in work expenses. My company pays out quickly, but I can't always time it right and don't want to come out of pocket til they reimburse every time.
Last month, I spent 101% of my CSP and it dinged my score 88 points. I paid it off 2 weeks before the payment date but it hasn't recovered. This whole process has been frustrating, I know I probably need more cards but with my score down I don't know what I can get and I'm fearful of more negative marks. My annual income is mid 6 figures without accounting for these employer expenses, I have 0 debt, I've never had any, and I just want to rebuild my fico score to help buy a home in the next 2/3 years.
list out all of your accounts and their balances and credit limits as they currently report on your credit report: https://www.annualcreditreport.com/index.action
utilization has no memory, so as soon as those balances are paid back down and those balances report and you have not incurred a derogatory late payment 30 days+ your score should rebound to roughly where it was before.
as a rule, in the future try not to have balances over 100% of your credit limit reporting on your credit report, even if you are paying it in full, it's not a derogatory for credit scoring, but creditors can see it as a negative and cite that as a credit denial reason
but assuming you haven't been late and you have no collections, you should be all good in terms of your credit score, you just need the reported balances to go back to being much lower than being maxed out.
@deepimpact97 wrote:Hi All,
Looking to get a bit of help/guidance as I am at a loss.
1 year ago I had a Fico score of 785, today it's 639. In that time I have not missed a single payment on any card. I've paid everything off in full prior to every statement date and do not carry balances. I have 3 cards, Amex Plat (15k) Apple Card (8k) and CSP (5k)
My company was acquired this year, and we no longer have corporate cards and I have to use my own. I travel for work a lot. This has had a massive impact on my CCU. Since January I've had about 60k in work expenses. My company pays out quickly, but I can't always time it right and don't want to come out of pocket til they reimburse every time.
Last month, I spent 101% of my CSP and it dinged my score 88 points. I paid it off 2 weeks before the payment date but it hasn't recovered. This whole process has been frustrating, I know I probably need more cards but with my score down I don't know what I can get and I'm fearful of more negative marks. My annual income is mid 6 figures without accounting for these employer expenses, I have 0 debt, I've never had any, and I just want to rebuild my fico score to help buy a home in the next 2/3 years.
My advice would be to start using the Amex Platinum for just about everything, since that does not count in the utilization computations; only the regular fixed limit cards -- your CSP and Apple cards -- figure into that.
If that doesn't do the trick, you're going to have readjust your priorities. I understand that you want to wait for the reimbursement from your employer rather than dig into your own dough, but if you want to improve your scores you'll have to cough up your own money to pay down the cards.
I agree that you should not apply for anything while your scores are depressed. Once you're up to 720 or higher you can feel free to go ahead and apply for another useful card.
@deepimpact97 wrote:Thank you! I didn't know that about Amex. My CCU on the Apple Card is sub 30% I pay it down once I hit about 3k.
To avoid a penalty it should be 28% or lower.