Food for thought:
The transactor/revolver behavior, by its nature must look at accounts individually. Some accounts may show transactor behavior and some may show revolver behavior. Some may be stone cold dead. A robust model should consider this in its analysis. My guess is revolver analysis may be akin to looking at utilization on a per card basis and in aggregate with a slight twist - limited, weighted average memory.
There may be some memory - like inquiries. Perhaps if you showed revolver behavior in a given month, you maintain a revolver designation on that card until 6 months of transactor behavior - then the revolver "tag" falls off. However, that creates chunky scoring.
A better option would be to look at a 6 month weighted aggregate average of (total months revolver tag all cards/total months all cards) with more weight given to recent months. Months where cards reporting zero balance may or may not be included in the total months. I would opt for exclusion as that then negates the artificial benefit of getting a boatload of dead cards to drive down ratio.
Of course, if you employ NRB525 tactics you could be a rising star. 
@Hevj1119 wrote:Hey all
I'm having a hard time figuring out how badly a few balances are affecting my credit score. I have 2 cards with very high utilization (51% and 87% respectively) but since they are 0% financing for 12 months, I am not in any rush to pay off the balances - just making 12 equal payments.
Overall though, I have 8 other accounts with 0% utilization (with relatively high limits) so my average utilization is only 16%.
So is credit karma correct? Has my score tanked from the high 700s to the mid 600s because of these 2 cards having high utilization? Or does FICO look at my OVERALL utilization and not per card?
FICO looks at both.
If you have high utilization on particular cards, that loses points.
If you have high overall utilization, that loses points as well.
The fact that they're financially rewarding zero interest balances is meaningful to you but meaningless to your FICO score.
So if the FICO scores are a priority for you, then you need to forego large promotional balances.
@Anonymous wrote:To the OP:
You wanted someone to expand a little on the advantages of Paying In Full of PIF. Olehammer mentioned that this might have some very particular advantages of its own.
First it's good to be clear about what how we are using the phrase. In what follows I am going to assume that, to pay in full means to make charges, allow them to report on your monthly statement, allow the statement to post (where there will be an "Amount owed"), and then AFTER the statement posts but before it is due, pay the amount owed in full. E.g. if the amount owed listed on the statement is $425, then you pay $425. Note that in this example the credit card company (CCC) will have reported your $425 balance to the three credit bureaus. Note also that by the time you pay the $425, your balance may be higher than $425, because you may have made more charges. That's no problem and is normal.
Finally, note that this definition of PIF is not the same as paying your balance down to $0 BEFORE the statement posts. In that case, you have no balance, no Amount Owed on your statement, and therefore nothing you must pay. To pay in full means to pay the amount owed in full. To PIF therefore typically refers to allowing your statement to report a positive balance and then in the next few weeks, to pay that amount.
So what are the advantages?
First of there are the obvious financial advantages. It you PIF, then you never pay any interest.
Second, you create a payment history. Your credit reports now record what your balance was every month for many months in a row. (Until recently, they only recorded your most recent balance.) More than that, for each month, your reports record how much of that balance you later paid. That means that future lenders will be able to see whether you tend to always PIF. People who adopt that style are known as transactors. At the other end of the spectrum are people who rarely PIF. These people only pay a part of the total amount owed. They carry the remainder over to the next month. (This is called carrying a balance.) People who often carry a balance are known as revolvers.
In the last several years, analysts have studied the risk levels posed by people who always PIF (transactors) vs. people who often carry a balance (revolvers). It turns out that revolvers are far more risky, far more likely to default, for example, than transactors.
Current and past FICO models never incorporated this transactor-revolver distinction into credit scores, but that's only because until recently the credit bureaus weren't collecting that long term payment history. (As I mentioned, until recently, they only collected the most recent balance.) But future credit scoring models very well may consider this, which is why people who begin establishing a history in their accounts as being transactors will have an advantage.
Furthermore, this change is happening far quicker than many of us expected. Fannie Mae is requiring all mortgage lenders to begin factoring this in to their decisions (starting next year). Other lenders may already be doing that. Here is an article that explains more of what will be happening as early as next year:
Let me know if that helps!
Thanks for sharing that, CreditGuy..... very interesting article. Since I'm the kind of person that hates carrying balances, regardless of interest rate, it looks like good news for me.
